iWorld
Sebi takes down 1.2 lakh finfluencer posts, deploys AI Sudarshan
Regulator sharpens digital watch as retail investors face options losses
NEW DELHI: The Securities and Exchange Board of India has pulled down more than 1.2 lakh misleading social media posts shared by unregistered financial influencers, tightening its grip on the fast-growing but often murky world of online investment advice.
Speaking to ANI, Sebi chairman Tuhin Kanta Pandey said the regulator acted against content that crossed the line from financial education into outright misdirection.
“We have removed more than 120,000 such pieces of content where we found egregious behaviour violating our norms,” Pandey said, underlining that only Sebi-registered entities are allowed to offer investment advice.
Registration, he explained, is not a mere formality. It comes with clear do’s and don’ts designed to protect investors. While individuals are free to share opinions and educate audiences under the right to freedom of expression, Sebi steps in when advice strays into misleading territory.
The watchdog is not relying on manual policing alone. It has rolled out an in-house artificial intelligence tool called ‘Sudarshan’, capable of scanning multilingual audio, video and text content to detect violations across platforms. The name is fitting. In mythology, Sudarshan is a spinning weapon. In this case, it slices through dubious digital claims.
Pandey said social media platforms have cooperated with takedown orders, reinforcing Sebi’s authority to demand removal of offending content.
The regulator’s sharper focus comes amid a surge in retail participation in derivatives trading, particularly options, in the post-Covid period. According to Pandey, many small investors were swayed by online narratives promising easy money.
Sebi responded by publishing data showing substantial collective losses and by introducing statutory warnings. Now, whenever investors trade in options, a pop-up cautions that nine out of ten investors lose money, a stark reminder modelled on health warnings seen elsewhere.
Pandey described regulation as a calibrated exercise rather than a blunt-force operation. Market development, he said, requires precision. “It is not about a sledgehammer approach but more like a surgeon’s knife, identifying problem areas and dealing with them.”
Calling the past year “a year of reform”, the Sebi chief said the regulator’s goal remains balanced oversight, ensuring markets are neither choked by over-regulation nor left exposed by too little scrutiny.
For India’s growing tribe of retail investors, the message is simple. Scroll carefully, trust cautiously and remember that in markets, if something sounds too good to be true, it often is.
iWorld
Spotify spotlights Premium with AI DJ and Lossless Audio push
Five week campaign highlights personalisation and high fidelity listening.
MUMBAI: Your playlist just got a promotion and it now comes with a DJ who never sleeps. Spotify is turning up the volume on its Premium proposition, rolling out a new campaign that places product features not just music centre stage.
At the heart of the push are two upgrades: AI DJ and Lossless Audio. Rather than pitching them as add-ons, Spotify positions these as the engines quietly reshaping how people listen, moving the experience from passive playback to something far more intuitive and immersive.
The campaign unfolds through two feature-led films rooted in everyday listening moments. One spot leans into AI DJ as a hyper-personalised curator, adapting in real time to mood, taste and listening patterns essentially turning algorithms into something that feels almost human. The other film zooms in on Lossless Audio, emphasising richer, high-fidelity sound that captures nuances often lost in compressed streaming.
It’s a strategic shift in storytelling. Instead of selling access to content, Spotify is selling how that content feels smarter, sharper, and more tailored to the individual listener.
The rollout is equally expansive. The five-week campaign spans digital video, connected TV, audio, out-of-home, social media and in-app integrations, ensuring visibility across both digital and physical touchpoints. The idea is clear: meet users wherever they are, and remind them that Premium is designed to follow.
There’s also a strong regional layer baked in. With integrations across Tamil and Telugu music, Spotify is leaning into India’s linguistic diversity, acknowledging that personalisation in this market is as much cultural as it is technological.
The broader play is hard to miss. In an increasingly crowded streaming landscape, differentiation is no longer just about catalogue size or pricing. It’s about experience. By foregrounding AI-led curation and high-quality audio, Spotify is betting that the next phase of competition will be won not by what users listen to, but how they listen to it.
And if this campaign is anything to go by, the platform is keen to ensure that every tap of the play button feels a little more like a performance.
