Artificial intelligence (AI) has moved from buzzword to boardroom, now playing an integral role in how brands connect and communicate. According to Pallavi Misra, Marketing & Communications Director at Mozaic Communications, AI is not replacing creativity—it’s enhancing it. With deep experience across the Asia Pacific and a passion for integrated campaigns, Pallavi Misra sees AI as a game-changer in delivering personalized, high-impact brand experiences at scale.
Whether generating tailored content, enabling real-time campaign adjustments, or unlocking audience insights, AI is helping marketers stay ahead. But Pallavi Misra emphasizes that while machines can crunch the numbers, it’s still human intuition that builds trust and lasting brand value.
Key Takeaways
- Leaders must be AI-literate. Marketing heads need to guide teams in using AI tools while keeping brand values intact.
- AI boosts speed and personalization. Marketers can now create tailored content and campaigns faster than ever before.
- Human creativity still matters. AI is powerful, but authentic branding and emotional connection come from people.
Highlights
AI in Marketing: What’s Changing and Why It Matters
Q: What are the key ways AI is reshaping the fundamental principles of brand building?
A: There are three interconnected ways in which AI is transforming brand building today – that is hyper-personalised experiences, the ability to create content quickly and highly personalised to the target audience, and real-time audience insights and analytics.
Marketeers are able to leverage generative AI tools – anything from ChatGPT to Jasper.ai to Ideogram to Kling.ai – to produce limitless content variations, headline options, visual concepts or campaign variations which can be localized and personalised within minutes. Once these campaigns are deployed, AI is also able to learn from performance data and continually tailor experiences, going far beyond traditional segmentation techniques, for brand audiences.
It’s exponentially boosting the speed of creation, enabling teams to rapidly create, test and learn from successful campaigns. The result is a continuous stream of fresh, tailored content that can keep loyal audiences engaged throughout their journey.
According to the Dentsu Creative 2024 CMO Report (see dentsu.com), CMOs are increasingly viewing AI as a collaborator and co-creative rather than a threat to human creativity. This shift represents a fundamental evolution in how brand teams will operate in the future.
Q: As AI expands access to expertise and lowers entry barriers, how is it reshaping competition in B2B marketing?
A: Marketing is a field where there is constant change. Perhaps a decade ago, brands may have spent a substantial portion of their budget on broadcast media campaigns, whereas today, they might channel their budget towards working with the right influencers on TikTok.
AI tools are driving the next shift in marketing by lowering traditional barriers to entry and democratising capabilities. As a result, sophisticated tools that once required big budgets or specialist teams are now accessible to startups and SMEs, allowing them to “punch above their weight” in reaching and engaging customers. This cuts across the entire marketing spectrum from content creation, image and video generation to enterprise grade analytics platforms for automated lead generation and analytics.
This democratization means a niche manufacturing or tech provider in Asia Pacific can compete with multinational rivals in content quality and targeting precision.
There are caveats – while AI delivers immense business and operational value, success in the AI era still comes back to fundamental principles:
- Which specific customer challenge will your AI implementation address? It is not a question of technology novelty, but business need.
- How must our expertise evolve to stay relevant? Human oversight, judgement and relationship management remains crucial differentiators.
- What unique assets can AI not replicate?
While AI enhances capabilities, it can’t replace authentic brand identity or industry expertise – it amplifies human value rather than substituting for it.
Q: How can marketing teams ensure they are leveraging AI-powered consumer insights effectively without losing the human touch?
A: AI tools are revolutionising marketing:
- Personalised content and automated testing: Marketing campaigns that once required months can now be brought to life in days or weeks and reach consumers with tailored messaging
- Website development and customer service: These points could be potential bottlenecks. However, when optimized with AI tools, these touchpoints now drive higher engagement and improve customer satisfaction.
- Image, text and video analysis: Simultaneous processing of multiple data formats helps marketers identify new innovation opportunities and consumer insights.
There is no doubt that these capabilities deliver substantial productivity gains to marketing teams. McKinsey research (see ‘How generative AI can boost consumer marketing’ on mckinsey.com) projects that these technologies could add up to $4.4 trillion annually to global productivity. Nevertheless, they still require human oversight.
Marketing teams need to see AI as a co-collaborator, not as a tool that takes over entirely. The highest-performing teams blend human intuition with AI analytics, using algorithms to crunch data and highlight patterns, then relying on marketers to interpret those insights and make judgment calls.
If as marketeers, we rely extensively on automation, there is a risk that the brand could sound too robotic. When building an authentic brand, trust and credibility are paramount, and customers will quickly tune out communications that sound inauthentic. A best practice is to train AI on the brand’s style guide and have humans fine-tune the outputs – ensuring the final message carries a human warmth and understanding that AI alone wouldn’t convey. There is still no substitute for human creativity and connection.
Q: What emerging AI trends in marketing do you find most transformative, and which should companies prioritize for effective integration?
A: Content generation using AI tools has reached a new velocity and milestone. It’s never been as easy for SMEs to incorporate their products and services into images and videos. This will be a game changer for organizations who are able to leverage capabilities to iterate variations and do A/B testing to find the right sweet spot with their audiences.
Conversational AI has matured to the point where chatbots and AI assistants are handling a significant portion of customer and prospect interactions. Research by Zendesk, (see ‘59 AI customer service statistics for 2025’ on zendesk.com) a software company specializing in providing customer service solutions, suggests that AI will eventually play a role in 100% of customer interactions and 80% of all inquiries will be resolved without the help of a human agent. Case in point (see ‘Klarna AI assistant handles two-thirds of customer service chats in its first month’ on klarna.com): An AI assistant handles two-thirds of customer service queries for Klarna, a Swedish fintech company known for its “buy now, pay later” services. The tool has significantly enhanced customer service, streamlined internal processes, and improved profitability. There will always be cases that need human intervention; however, this is a powerful tool to streamline processes and improve efficiency for businesses.
Q: Why will the role of marketing leaders need to evolve in an AI-driven business landscape, and what key skills will be essential for success?
A: Hubspot research (See ‘The AI Advantage In Asia Pacific’ on hubspot.com) highlights that nearly three-quarters of leaders in Asia Pacific plan to hire AI-specific roles (69% in Australia, 75% in Singapore), and 64% in Australia and 87% in Singapore plan to reorganise their workforce or teams due to AI adoption, signaling that organisations are committed to embracing AI as fundamental to business.
This means that marketing leaders need to be able to guide their teams through adopting AI-powered tools (from analytics to content generation) and ensure that these tools align with brand identity and goals. Being AI-literate is a must-have skill.
In addition to ensuring their teams stay abreast of technology, CMOs must foster a culture that values big ideas, storytelling, and customer empathy, even as their teams use AI to generate content or crunch data. Creativity is more important than ever in the age of AI and leaders who enable their teams with AI “superpowers” without losing the human spark – will strengthen their brands in the long run.
Leading with Empathy in an AI-Powered Future
As AI becomes embedded in marketing workflows, leaders must evolve into translators—bridging data with storytelling, and automation with authenticity. Pallavi Misra highlights that across the region, companies are reorganizing teams and hiring AI-specific roles, signaling a fundamental shift in how marketing will operate.
But success won’t come from tech alone. The brands that thrive will be those led by marketers who embrace AI’s speed and scale, yet remain grounded in customer empathy and creative thinking. As Pallavi Misra puts it, AI may power the engine, but it’s the human spark that steers the brand forward.
Highlights
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