As marketers rush to deploy AI agents and automation, HDFC Bank is taking a more foundational route. Vineet Soni, Deputy Vice President, Growth Marketing & MarTech, HDFC Bank, says the real challenge is to first connect channels, data and customer intent at scale. Conversation with Brij Pahwa, Editorial Lead, e4m and MartechAi.com.
For HDFC Bank, the next phase of marketing technology is not starting with artificial intelligence. It is starting with the infrastructure beneath it.
At a time when banks, insurers, fintechs and consumer companies are rapidly experimenting with AI-led marketing, campaign automation and personalisation engines, Vineet Soni, Deputy Vice President, Growth Marketing & MarTech, HDFC Bank, believes the larger challenge is more fundamental. Before AI can optimise customer journeys or power autonomous marketing, the organisation must first connect its data, channels and customer touchpoints into one coherent system.
In a conversation with MarTechAI, Soni described HDFC Bank’s MarTech direction as the creation of a “railroad” for AI. The phrase is important because it captures the bank’s current priority. AI may be the technology everyone wants to build for, but without a connected MarTech foundation, its impact will remain limited.
According to Soni, HDFC Bank is focusing on omnichannel orchestration, hyper-personalisation and eventually more autonomous marketing systems. But the bank’s approach suggests that the future of AI in marketing will not be decided only by models, agents or tools. It will depend on whether enterprises can create the rails on which those systems can operate.
AI Needs A Connected Data Layer
Soni said HDFC Bank is experimenting with AI across different areas, including campaign automation, creative optimisation and other proof-of-concepts. But he made it clear that these experiments need to sit on top of a larger architecture.
“AI has to sit on top of data,” he said.
For him, the limitation of many AI-led marketing experiments is that they are still being built over isolated channels. A team may want an agent for email campaigns, another may want one for net banking, while another may look at push notifications or creative automation. But if each of these agents works only within a silo, the customer experience remains fragmented.
The real opportunity, he indicated, lies in enabling AI to operate over connected customer context across channels. That is why HDFC Bank’s marketing technology journey is being built around a common CDP layer and an omnichannel stack that can serve customers across the bank.
The bank’s goal is not just to reach customers through several touchpoints. It is to ensure that those touchpoints work with the same understanding of the customer.
Omnichannel Is Not Just Multiple Channels
For Soni, omnichannel does not simply mean sending communication through app, email, SMS, WhatsApp, RCS, net banking, website or social channels. It means ensuring that communication is consistent, relevant and non-repetitive across the customer journey.
A customer who prefers the mobile banking app may behave very differently from someone who uses net banking. A third customer may still rely heavily on the branch. The task for the bank is not to force a single journey on all of them, but to recognise these different behaviours and respond with the right context.
This is especially important in banking, where customer journeys are rarely linear. A customer may browse a loan product, drop off from an application, visit a branch, receive an offer, complete a service request or return later through the app. In a legacy system, these signals may sit across different teams and channels. In a modern MarTech architecture, they need to be connected.
Soni said the bank is trying to shift focus from what the bank believes is relevant for a customer to what the customer is indicating in real time.
That shift changes the role of marketing. Instead of pushing the next product, the system has to understand the customer’s current need.
From What The Bank Thinks To What The Customer Wants
One of the most significant points in the conversation was Soni’s explanation of how HDFC Bank is trying to move from institution-led communication to customer-led context.
If a customer has shown intent around a particular journey, product or service, the bank should be able to suppress generic messaging and surface the most relevant need. That need may not always be a loan, card or offer. It could be a pending re-KYC, Aadhaar address update, card modification, international spends requirement or another service-related issue.
This matters because customer experience in banking is often shaped not only by product offers, but by whether the bank understands the customer’s immediate context.
If a customer walks into a branch and has a pending service requirement, the branch should ideally know it. If a customer has dropped off from a product journey, the next interaction should reflect that. If a customer is trying to complete a service action, the bank should not interrupt the journey with an unrelated product pitch.
Soni said the bank’s focus is to understand what the customer is looking for and then use omnichannel systems to surface that need across touchpoints.
This is where customer experience becomes the outcome of MarTech, rather than a separate function.
Why Banking Needs This Shift Now
The urgency is also being shaped by disruption in financial services. Soni pointed out that banking verticals such as investment and insurance have seen significant change over the last few years. Digital-first platforms have altered customer expectations around ease, speed, interface and relevance.
Customers no longer compare banks only with other banks. They compare them with fintechs, investment apps, insurance platforms and consumer technology products that offer simpler and faster experiences.
That shift has forced banks to rethink how they engage with customers.
Soni said HDFC Bank has been modernising its own digital assets, including its website, app, net banking and PayZapp. He acknowledged that legacy systems and older ways of working are real challenges, but said the bank has recognised the need to move quickly.
The change, he said, is visible in the newer versions of the bank’s digital assets, where the focus is increasingly on customer experience.
Bringing MarTech To The Branch
Perhaps the most interesting part of HDFC Bank’s MarTech journey is that it is not limited to digital channels.
Soni spoke about Expressway, a system created on the bank’s MarTech stack, which he said has been designed to serve customers across the length and breadth of the country. The idea is to bring the same orchestration logic that powers digital journeys into assisted channels such as branches.
In banking, Soni explained, there are assisted and unassisted channels. Unassisted channels include digital touchpoints such as app, website and net banking. Assisted channels include branch employees, relationship managers and customer service executives.
Traditionally, a branch executive may not have had the full context of a customer’s digital behaviour or pending service needs. That could lead to poor experiences. A customer could visit a branch for one transaction and later discover that another service requirement, such as re-KYC, was pending.
With Expressway, HDFC Bank is trying to make customer context available to branch teams, with consent. If a customer has browsed certain products, dropped off from a journey, has a pending service requirement or is eligible for certain offers, the branch employee can have a more informed conversation.
This expands the meaning of omnichannel in India. It cannot be limited to digital notifications. It has to include the branch, the relationship manager and other assisted touchpoints.
India’s Omnichannel Challenge Is Different
India’s banking market makes omnichannel harder than in many other markets. Customer behaviour differs sharply across metros, smaller cities and semi-urban or rural markets. Some customers are digital-first. Others still depend on branch-led support.
Soni’s point is that a true omnichannel system has to serve both.
The same MarTech layer that powers app journeys must also support assisted interactions. The same customer context that informs digital communication must help a branch executive understand the customer better. The same logic that suppresses irrelevant communication on one channel should ideally apply across other channels as well.
This is not just a technology challenge. It is an organisational challenge.
Large banks have multiple product teams, channel teams and customer-facing units. Unless they are connected internally, the fragmentation becomes visible externally. The customer sees it as repetition, irrelevance or poor service.
The Road To N Equal To 1
HDFC Bank’s larger ambition is to move towards hyper-personalisation at an individual customer level, or what Soni referred to as “N equal to 1”.
But that end state depends on whether the bank can first connect the building blocks. Channels need to be integrated. Data needs to be accessible. Customer signals need to be understood in real time. Assisted and unassisted journeys need to speak to each other.
Only then can AI begin to add meaningful value.
This is where Soni’s view differs from the current AI rush. He is not dismissing AI agents or automation. In fact, he said the bank is actively looking at the autonomous side of marketing. But he is clear that autonomy will work only when the underlying omnichannel foundation is strong.
If an agentic layer sits on one siloed channel, it will inherit the limitations of that channel. If it sits on top of connected data and orchestration, it can potentially create far more value.
Autonomous Marketing Is The End State, Not The Starting Point
Soni said HDFC Bank is actively focusing on autonomous marketing. But in his view, autonomous marketing cannot be treated as a plug-and-play layer. It has to emerge from a connected system where products, features, services and offers can reach customers at scale in a more seamless way.
That is an important lesson for the broader industry.
The first wave of AI adoption in marketing has often been focused on faster content creation, email drafting, summary generation, presentations, creative variants and campaign support. These are useful, but they are not enough to transform customer engagement at enterprise scale.
For large organisations, especially in BFSI, the harder work lies in connecting data, reducing channel silos, aligning internal teams and building systems that can respond to real customer intent.
That is why HDFC Bank’s MarTech story is not simply about AI adoption. It is about infrastructure, orchestration and organisational change.
The MarTech Professional’s Next Challenge
For Soni personally, the intersection of MarTech and AI is where the next phase of learning and execution lies. He said he is focused on the output of technology rather than technology for its own sake.
That distinction matters.
In enterprise marketing, the success of MarTech and AI will not be judged by the number of tools deployed. It will be judged by whether they improve customer outcomes, increase relevance, reduce friction and create measurable business impact.
Soni said Expressway is one area the bank is proud of, as it is contributing to business while also improving how customer context is used across assisted channels.
The Bigger Picture
HDFC Bank’s MarTech transformation reflects where enterprise marketing in India is headed. The conversation is moving beyond campaigns, dashboards and channel execution. It is now about connected systems that can support AI-led personalisation, assisted and unassisted journeys, and eventually autonomous marketing.
For a bank of HDFC’s scale, the challenge is complex. The customer base is vast, the product universe is wide and the touchpoints are deeply varied. But that is also what makes the transformation significant.
AI may be the headline technology of the moment. But HDFC Bank’s approach suggests that the winners may not be the companies that adopt AI first. They may be the ones that first build the railroads on which AI can actually run.
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