Marketing in 2026: An Age of Shared Agency

As years go, 2025 will probably be remembered in the short term as an “annus horribulus” given its geopolitics and the overall state of the world. However, over the longer arc of history, it will probably be remembered as part of the beginning of the age of AI. In my MxMIndia column this fortnight, I look forward to 2026 in the light of the longer frame.

From Recall to Rasa: Toward a New Theory of Advertising

Over my four decades in advertising, the last decades have seen the most change. The mean constraints of performance marketing, the obscurities of Big Data and soon the uncharted territory of AI. To regain its mojo, advertising needs to be more creative — not less —more in touch with the human side of the consumer, and move towards realising its potential as an art form. This fortnight, my MxMIndia column cloaks this thought in the form of a new theory of advertising. Sort of.

From Machine Learning to Machine Curiosity to Machine Creativity

It is my belief AI will change human civilisation at paradigm-shifting level that the harnessing of fire did. It will do so both at the societal level, through the accelerated progress of science and technology as also in empowering the individual through services like Concierge Intelligence as outlined by me in a previous post. To realise this potential AI will need to go beyond seeking patterns in Big Data to gaining the agency to be curious, to explore and to be creative. This post is a musing on this possibility.

The Coming Age of AI and IoT as Public Utilities?

For the past year or so AI has become a big interest of mine both at the professional and the philosophical level. After a few days of wallowing in the shock of the Covid19 disruption I have begun to think about the deeper changes this Black Swan event will effect in all aspect of human society and civilisation. Today’s post on my blog is about a possible paradigm shift that can happen in the area of particular interest to me – AI and the related fields of Big Data and IoT. Look forward to your comments and views.

The True Promise of AI in Marketing

The True Promise of AI in Marketing
I believe the use of analytic and AI in marketing till date has not just been sub-optimal but in the wrong direction. This post briefly points out a new direction