12:20, 11 January 2026

Konstantin Mayor: “AI Will Not Replace Humans, but Humans Without AI Will Not Cope”

MAER CEO explains how artificial intelligence and people complement each other within the media holding.

Digital technologies and artificial intelligence are reshaping today’s media landscape in Russia and worldwide. But how does this affect industry professionals and end consumers? Konstantin Mayor, owner and chief executive of media holding MAER, addressed this question in an interview with IT-Russia. Russia’s No. 1 federal digital advertising operator combines multimedia technologies, interactive solutions, and instant information distribution.

An Assistant for Processing Information

According to Mayor, AI-generated content has reached such a high level of quality that it is becoming increasingly difficult to distinguish it from human-created material. MAER began using AI tools long before they became a mainstream trend, which the media holding now sees as a competitive advantage. At the same time, Mayor emphasizes that artificial intelligence at MAER is used primarily as an assistant for processing vast volumes of information.

“One example is the launch of the MAX messenger. Over a 48-hour period, real messages sent by people across Russia to a dedicated chatbot were displayed on our media façades. At the same time, live street footage from the media façade was streamed on VK Video. People congratulated friends and relatives on holidays, some proposed marriage, and others revealed the gender of their future child. AI was used to process all incoming messages, with around 5,000 people interacting with the chatbot. Everyone who submitted a message received the exact time it would appear on the media façade, and later a photo featuring their own message. Without AI, even a dozen people would not have been able to handle such a task in real time,” Konstantin Mayor said.

AI Filters, Humans Decide

At the same time, the project would not have been possible without human involvement. The media holding implemented multi-stage moderation of messages. Artificial intelligence filtered out content that did not match the theme. All messages were then reviewed by the MAX team and, at the final stage, by lawyers and editors.

“And it turned out that it was the editors who filtered out messages that had slipped past both AI and even the lawyers. These messages were either ambiguous or contradicted basic logic. A machine simply could not cope with that. But we also would not have been able to implement this case without AI,” Mayor said.

MAER serves as a vivid example of successful digital transformation in the media sector, where artificial intelligence and humans complement each other. The holding does not replace genuine content with artificial output, but uses AI as a powerful tool for processing massive amounts of data.

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