How CelcomDigi Business Fused Malay Heritage with AI to Spark Innovation in Business News

Objective

CelcomDigi Business aimed to own relevant segments within NSTP Business sections and sought an innovative way to showcase its offerings to business news readers. This had never been done before in this content space.

Challenge

CelcomDigi Business needed to stand out within the business content ecosystem. The brand was looking for a fresh, never-been-done format to engage business readers while showcasing its innovation and relevance.

Result

5.3M total widget impressions

2M total widget engagements

136% higher engagement rate compared to standard banners

16% increase in time spent on articles with the widget

32.8% brand lift (vs audiences not exposed)

86% of surveyed users viewed CelcomDigi Business as innovative

Insights

AI’s growing talkability saw a +74% increase in 2024 (Meltwater), indicating strong relevance among business audiences. This presented an opportunity to introduce a culturally driven AI experience that could connect more meaningfully with local readers in a business content environment.

Strategy

We trained an AI model to craft four-line pantuns, blending tradition with technology. Targeting Malay business readers and SMEs, we placed the widget on all business articles across Berita Harian and Harian Metro, analysing complex articles in real time and transforming them into easy-to-consume pantuns. This reinforced CelcomDigi Business’ position as an industry innovator while driving meaningful engagement with business content readers.

Execution

AI-powered widget was placed on all business articles across Berita Harian and Harian Metro
The widget analysed complex business articles in real time
It generated four-line pantuns that transformed the content into easy-to-consume summaries for readers

To bring the AI pantun experience to life, the process was built across three key phases:

Automation & Processing →

A custom workflow was created using Apache Airflow (open-source)
The system runs every two hours, pulling fresh articles from Google Cloud Storage
Each article goes through cleaning, deduplication, and keyword-based filtering to prepare it for AI generation

Pantun Generation & Validation →

A GPT-4o-based script was developed to process each article and generate four-line pantuns using the ABAB rhyme structure
Pantuns were designed to reflect the core message of each news piece
All pantuns were validated before being stored in Google Cloud

Pantun Widget Deployment

The AI-generated pantuns were deployed via interactive widgets embedded in business articles across Berita Harian and Harian Metro
These widgets pulled pantuns from cloud storage and displayed them in real time, delivering a seamless and culturally relevant reading experience