In the age of deepfakes, even proof needs proof: Rachana Panda, Bayer

At the 15th edition of the India PR and Corporate Communication Conference (IPRCCC) held in Delhi on June 26, Rachana Panda, VP & Cluster Communications Head, ASEAN, ANZ & South Asia at Bayer, delivered a powerful keynote that moved beyond trends to offer heartfelt reflections on navigating communications in a fragmented, fast-changing world.

Addressing a packed room of communication leaders, Panda opened with humility and honesty: “Frankly, I didn’t know what to tell a room full of communicators… What I can do is talk about reflections.”

Drawing from her 29-year journey in communications, she focused on the deeper, often overlooked dimensions of the craft — empathy, trust, emotional intelligence, and the courage to tell the full story.

Panda emphasised the urgent need for communicators to take ownership of the full narrative, especially in a world where misinformation and polarised viewpoints thrive. “We live in a world where we only hear one side of the story. A partial truth can become a very, very powerful lie,” she warned.

She illustrated this with a real-world example from Bayer’s global operations during the Russia-Ukraine conflict. While many companies pulled out of the Russian market in protest, Bayer chose to stay — a decision rooted in ethics and responsibility.

“Being a food and medicine company, we could not just pull out. We had to take a position that we will continue to be in Russia because we cannot let the farmers not get the seeds or the people not get their medicines,” she explained.

Panda asked the audience a simple but striking question: “Who do you trust the most today?” Her answer? “Our phone. It’s our most trusted companion… we give it all our secrets.”

She pointed out that while this digital intimacy is convenient, it’s also dangerous when instinct is replaced by instant reactions. “When we’ve traded instinct for instant, it’s important to make an informed choice—as parents, as communicators, as leaders—to look beyond the phone,” she urged.

Panda sounded the alarm on the deepfake era, recounting a chilling incident where a global CEO was nearly discredited by an AI-generated video. “In the age of deepfakes, even proof needs proof,” she cautioned, calling for robust monitoring systems and stronger trust ecosystems between brands, media, and audiences.

As companies undergo digital transformation and restructuring, Panda reminded the audience that technology must never replace empathy.

“How we exit people, how we let them go, the narration, the fairness, is so, so important,” she said. “Everything else will change, but emotions will not. The future will always belong to people who are emotionally fluent.”

In a session that struck a chord with both seasoned and young professionals, Rachana Panda's message was clear: in a fragmented world, communicators must be the thread that ties empathy, ethics, and facts together.