At a time when AI’s influence on marketing is accelerating, a candid MarTech Thursday webinar hosted by MartechAI.com and e4m explored the real-world shifts marketers are grappling with. The verdict? The funnel has fractured, the rules are being rewritten, and everyone—brands, platforms, and people—is learning in real-time.

"Marketing is no longer about psychoanalysis or gut instinct alone," said moderator Brij Pahwa, Editorial Head at MarTechAI.com. “According to McKinsey, it is now the second most impacted business function by AI after operations. From predictive segmentation to content generation, marketing is undergoing a radical makeover.”

Watch the full session here:

AI in the Funnel: Where the Impact Hits Hardest

Kicking off the discussion, Tathagat Jena, Head of Marketing at HMD Global (Nokia), cut straight to the impact zone: “Search. Search is where AI has delivered the most immediate consumer-facing results. Our strategy has shifted from keyword-based search to intent-based discovery.”

He noted a significant pivot in consumer behavior, driven by AI-powered tools that now demand brands to optimize content in the way consumers are searching, not just how marketers intend to be found. “We’re also mining everyday retail interactions using AI-generated summaries of sales audio logs to understand what’s actually happening in the market. It’s not always about big research budgets—it’s about listening at scale.”

Anuradha Gupta, Executive Director of Marketing at Deloitte, offered a bifocal view: one for B2C, and another for professional services. “For us in B2B, the marketing funnel is no longer a funnel. AI helps us show up wherever the customer is. Since we can’t advertise being a regulated firm, content personalization and multimedia AI tools are how we accelerate go-to-market strategies.”

Personalization Meets Scale—Finally

But the biggest transformation, several panelists agreed, lies in the dream that marketers have long harbored: the elusive fusion of personalization and scale.

“Ten years ago, you could walk into a Levi’s store and be impressed because the staff knew your size and preferences. But they couldn’t scale that,” said Ishan Kaul, AI researcher and investor, formerly at JP Morgan. “Today, AI enables that kind of hyper-personalization for millions of users—because it can read unstructured data like your email, search history, and past behavior.”

However, Kaul warned, many are “using AI under the garb of automation,” without tapping into its actual intelligence. “We must distinguish between true intelligence and robotic repetition.”

Vikas Nair, VP and Head of Marketing at Century Real Estate, echoed this with a pragmatic view from a sector less digitized than most: “Content is where the biggest disruption has occurred. From scripting to performance testing, AI has shrunk what used to take weeks into hours. AI has brought a lot of efficiency, impacting not just the content but also the process."

Yet, he added, “AI’s role in lead nurturing and customer experience is also evolving. For example, bots are now choosing the right communication channel—email, call, WhatsApp—based on what the customer prefers and when they’re likely to respond.”

When AI Brings Product and Marketing Together

Esha Gupta, formerly with Airtel and Myntra, spotlighted how AI has closed the long-standing gap between product and marketing teams. “They used to work in silos. But thanks to AI insights, both now operate with a shared understanding of the customer.”

At Myntra, Gupta worked on Vota.AI, a fashion intelligence assistant that helped category managers predict what trends would rule upcoming seasons, compressing fashion cycles from 10 months to 3. “AI didn’t just help customers. It empowered our designers, category heads, and even sellers with deep, real-time insights.”

She added, “At Airtel, we launched AI-enabled spam call detection, but we still relied heavily on human-curated data to fine-tune the models. AI is a co-pilot, not the pilot.”

Learning from the Market—and from Mistakes

One of the most surprising insights came from Tathagat Jena, who shared how AI overturned a long-held internal assumption at HMD Global.

“When we launched the HMD Barbie—a niche ‘detox’ phone—we expected it to appeal to our Tier-2 and Tier-3 user base. But 75% of sales came from Tier-1 cities like Delhi and Mumbai,” Jena revealed. “It showed us that when data contradicts your intuition, you must listen.”

Gupta added to this with a reflection on AI’s current limitations: “Even today, you could be served ads for a 10-lakh Suzuki car and a 70-lakh BMW within hours. That means brands are still getting segmentation wrong. So we’re seeing progress, but not perfection.”

How Real Estate is Automating with AI

Nair elaborated on how his industry—a high-value, slow-moving product category—is slowly becoming AI-friendly. “The entire purchase journey is still very offline. But we’ve integrated WhatsApp bots and AI agents to pre-qualify leads and map user journeys. We’re even feeding CRM data back into Meta platforms to run lookalike campaigns based on real conversion behavior.”

Despite its complexity, Nair emphasized that the stakes were too high to ignore AI. “There’s simply no option to sit this one out.”

Stack vs Off-the-Shelf: Building AI Tools In-House

As discussions turned technical, the panel debated whether brands should build custom stacks or rely on third-party tools. For Gupta, the answer lay in hybrid intelligence.

“Spam detection at Airtel used both AI and manual data tuning. Human verification is crucial because LLMs still hallucinate. We can’t hand over the keys just yet.”

Kaul added, “The fastest way to lose your brand’s voice is to let agentic AI operate unsupervised. The final ‘send’ button must remain with a human.”

Are We Creeping Out Customers?

The session also addressed the growing discomfort around how deep AI-based personalization can go—sometimes feeling invasive.

“I was searching something on Blinkit, and it showed up on Flipkart without me typing anything,” said Pahwa. “Is that marketing magic—or surveillance?”

“Honestly, brands aren’t the ones with this power,” Nair clarified. “Platforms are. Brands don’t get voice recordings or deep listening data. We rely on what platforms share. But yes, we need better transparency.”

Anuradha Gupta noted that being in a regulated business like Deloitte comes with stricter guardrails: “We’re cautious. But as a personal user, I don’t mind sharing data—if it gives me what I want faster. There’s always a trade-off between convenience and privacy.”

Kaul agreed. “The regulatory landscape—DPDP, GDPR—will catch up, but slowly. Until then, brands must be the responsible party.”

The Skills That Matter in AI Marketing

As the webinar neared conclusion, the panelists explored the new skillsets marketers must embrace.

“One key skill,” said Nair, “is being able to spot what isn’t AI. There are too many vendors pitching basic automation as intelligence.”

Anuradha Gupta summed it up well: “You can outsource writing, but not thinking.”

AI Won’t Replace Marketers—But Marketers Who Use AI Might Win

The session ended with a light-hearted rapid-fire round and some sobering final thoughts.

“We are all learning,” said Isha Gupta. “AI is not replacing creativity—it’s reshaping it. Marketers need to become orchestrators.”

Kaul concluded, “This isn’t about hype anymore. AI is the new electricity for marketing. Those who ignore it will be left behind.”

Moderator Brij Pahwa wrapped up: “AI won’t replace marketers. But those who use AI smartly just might.”

Key Takeaways from the MarTech Thursday Webinar:

• Search and content are the most impacted marketing functions.

• Hyper-personalization at scale is now achievable—but not easy.

• Brands are still struggling to read data correctly, leading to misfires.

• AI agents and CRM integrations are improving lead quality and customer experience, even in legacy industries like real estate.

• Building your own stack gives control, but hybrid intelligence—AI + human—is non-negotiable.

• Privacy concerns and ethical use of AI remain unresolved, but evolving.

• Marketers must learn to separate true intelligence from flashy automation.

As the AI-marketing story unfolds, one thing is clear: this is not just a technological revolution. It’s a philosophical one, challenging how we understand customers, campaigns—and even creativity itself.