Funding: Own budget (2)
Atameken Business (media holding) pioneered AI virtual news anchors in Kazakhstan: i-Sanj (launched 2020, modelled on actor Sanzhar Madi), the Kazakh-language i-Sana, then AI-Sel and AI-Dim. It fully automated its morning digest — dropping the announcer (диктор) and journalist roles, now handled by neural networks — and uses Google NotebookLM to parse world news and generate analytics, infographics and podcasts.
Lada.kz, a regional west-Kazakhstan news site, uses AI to search information, transcribe audio interviews, edit text and auto-generate SEO meta-descriptions and keywords (on upload to the CMS, to rank in Google/Yandex) — running ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and ElevenLabs. Editorial policy bars AI from investigations and human-interest stories, where it may only check spelling.