CMOs face the challenge of navigating a complex and ever-changing martech landscape. Add to that the pressure to inject artificial intelligence. Can AI help brands navigate the new era of martech?

Keeping up with the competitive retail landscape today means marketers face an increasingly complex challenge: understanding customer behaviour, driving conversions, and optimising acquisition costs. Navigating the MarTech (marketing technology) ecosystem can feel overwhelming with the countless platforms, data points, and marketing tools. Now, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is stepping in — touted as a game-changer. But business leaders are taking a conservatively optimistic approach, to start using AI as a supporting tool, and then scale up.

There’s proof in the pudding. Leading brands have proven results, and are working towards hyper-personalisation, leveraging real-time data analysis to craft bespoke experiences for each customer. It’s a worthy automation capability for marketing teams to invest in – AI-powered algorithms scan past interactions, predict preferences, and serve personalised recommendations, ensuring that brands engage the right customer, with the right message, at the right time.

Where We are At

As AI tools become integral to content creation and engagement, maintaining brand authenticity has never been more critical—or more challenging. Automation may be able to replicate tone or generate variations on a theme, but true brand identity is rooted in human values, purpose, and storytelling.

“Keeping up with AI will be a huge focus for brands this year, but there’s also a challenge to be tackled in balancing AI’s efficiency with brand authenticity. As AI tools become cheaper, faster and more accessible, we’re seeing a wave of reactive, AI-generated content flood our feeds. But this can have the effect of feeling formulaic, impersonal, and will make audiences scroll past without a second thought,” says Charlotte Fleming, Senior Marketing Manager at Prime Time.

“At Prime Time, we’ve used AI deliberately – for entertainment, jumping on trends, or scaling ideas. We believe audiences don’t want perfection from brands, they want personality! In a screen-saturated world, people are craving more realness, not less,” she adds.

Personalisation as a Brand Differentiator

The promise of AI has always been personalisation at scale—but too often, that’s amounted to algorithmic targeting rather than true individualisation.

“Marketers can now design experiences not just based on who someone is, but what they’re doing in the moment across channels, touchpoints, and contexts. That opens up smarter storytelling and better commercial outcomes,” says Aadil Mukhtar, Head of Marketing – Growth & Technology at United Rugby Championship, stating that the shift from generic personalisation to true individualisation using real-time, AI-driven behavioural data will be a key trend impacting marketing in 2025.

AI now enables marketers to move beyond demographic or purchase data, drawing insights from real-time interactions, content consumption, and emotional cues. When done right, this creates a powerful sense of being understood—without being watched—turning personalisation into a meaningful brand differentiator rather than a transactional tactic.

Navigating the Evolving Privacy Paradigm

With increasing regulations like GDPR, CCPA, and the deprecation of third-party cookies, marketers are being forced to rethink how they collect and use customer data. Rather than viewing this shift as a limitation, many are seeing it as a creative opportunity to build trust and loyalty.

“Prioritising data privacy and transparency is critical to building trust with your customers, which goes hand in hand with being able to build a robust first party data (1PD) strategy, with the customer at its core to enable marketers to deliver more personalised and targeted campaigns,” says Lucy Norman, Product Lead for Martech, Adtech and Data at The Very Group, emphasising that a 1PD strategy should not merely be a response to regulatory requirements, but a fundamental and integrated component of a brand’s overall marketing approach.

Brands are focusing more on transparent value exchanges—offering useful content, personalised experiences, or exclusive access in return for first-party or zero-party data. In a privacy-first world, ethical data practices aren’t just compliance requirements—they’re a competitive advantage that strengthens customer relationships over the long term.

Content Shifts from Brand-Led to Audience-Informed

Great marketing begins with great listening—and that’s where data proves indispensable. With the right analytical frameworks, brands can move beyond performance metrics to understand what their audiences genuinely care about.

“In today’s crowded digital marketplace where consumers have less disposable income, leveraging accessible, high-quality data to inform content and campaign strategies is essential. This approach enables the creation of impactful stand-out moments that will resonate with your audiences and deliver measurable results,” adds Norman.

This insight-driven approach shifts content from being brand-led to audience-informed, allowing teams to deliver value at every touchpoint—not just information. “Build fewer things, but make them matter. It’s easy to chase channels, formats or trends. Have a clear view of what your audience genuinely values, then align your team, stack, and spend to serve that with precision,” comments Mukhtar.

Stay True to the Fundamentals

As marketing evolves under the influence of AI, data, and shifting consumer expectations, the path forward isn’t about mastering every new tool—it’s about staying grounded in what has always made marketing meaningful.

On being customer obsessed, Norman suggests always placing the customer at the heart of everything a brand does – “whether it’s developing products, crafting experiences, or designing campaigns.”

AI can enhance this process by detecting patterns humans might miss, but it must be steered by genuine curiosity and care. When brands use technology to deepen—not replace—human understanding, they build loyalty that algorithms alone can’t generate.