Delhi–NCR’s marketing and technology elite gathered on December 10, 2025 at The Leela Palace, Gurugram for the MarTechAI Summit & Awards 2025. The one-day event, organized by Exchange4Media and MartechAI.com, was billed under the theme “Agentic AI and Beyond – Redefining the Future of MarTech”. Industry leaders from brands, agencies and technology providers came together to exchange ideas on AI-driven marketing, data strategy and creative tech. Sessions ranged from visionary keynotes to expert panels on personalization, autonomy and ROI, capped by an evening awards ceremony recognizing the most innovative MarTech work of the year.
Keynote Highlights: From Brand Engines to Agentic Marketing
The summit opened with a keynote by Ravi Santhanam, Group Head & CMO of HDFC Bank, who spoke on “The AI-Powered Marketer: Building Intelligent, Always-On Brand Engines.” Santhanam set the tone with a blunt observation: “Human stupidity cannot be overcome by artificial intelligence.” In other words, no amount of AI can save poor strategy. He urged marketers to start with clear business problems and deep consumer understanding before layering on technology. Rather than isolated campaigns, brands must become “experience engines” that deliver hyper-relevant conversations across every touchpoint. For example, HDFC Bank uses AI-driven offer engines to personalize millions of content variations in real time – far beyond what manual teams could ever create. “Imagine multiplying this across all products – we are talking about 1.35 million pieces of content. Manually, this is impossible,” Santhanam explained. He even showed how QR-linked journeys can synchronize customer and employee experiences: when a customer scans a QR code, the relevant offer appears on their device and is sent to the relationship manager. Such innovations, Santhanam says, pave the way toward more natural, even conversational marketing. “Can we personalise not just content but conversations? That’s the future we are building toward,” he challenged. He closed by emphasizing that technology is only one piece of the puzzle – success requires a culture of experimentation and strong data foundations. “If you don’t have clean data, build it,” he said, urging leaders to allow failures in the pursuit of insight.
In the afternoon, Siddharth Gopalkrishnan, Chief Customer & Marketing Officer at Netcore Cloud, delivered a forward-looking keynote on “Agentic Marketing” – the use of autonomous, multi-agent AI workflows. Gopalkrishnan likened marketing’s historical challenges (fragmented customers, messy attribution, inability to scale personalization) to the once-impossible four-minute mile. Just as Bannister’s record unlocked new potential, he argued, a breakthrough in AI orchestration can shatter marketing’s barriers. He noted that discovery on digital platforms has become sharply intent-driven, shrinking the marketing funnel to a “much smaller catchment” of highly specific queries. This means relevance is now non-negotiable: “People aren’t Googling anything and everything anymore… Your funnel now starts with a smaller catchment and demands much higher relevance,” Gopalkrishnan warned.
The solution, he suggested, is to treat AI collectively. Most marketers use AI tools in silos (for segmentation or content, etc.), but true “agentic” systems coordinate them like a team of assistants. “With one prompt, can we create many more micro-segments and a much larger set of creatives: personalized, channel-ready, real-time, and with built-in trust layers?” he asked. He then shared Netcore’s proof-of-concept: for a global retail campaign, agentic AI automatically mined past campaigns for insights, generated 20+ customer segments, created tailored creative variations under brand guidelines, and even optimized timing and channels – tasks that used to take an eight-to-ten-person team a week, done now in minutes. Gopalkrishnan concluded that this isn’t a lab experiment but a live reality, and he urged the industry to embrace outcome-based thinking: “We’re happy to tie fees to actual revenue outcomes. That’s the model the industry must move toward,” he said. The keynote underscored that in the age of agentic AI, marketers can finally tackle longstanding “impossible” problems – if they rethink their operating models and tech stacks.
Spotlight Panels: Empathy, Autonomy and ROI
Beyond the keynotes, panels explored how these AI concepts play out in practice. A recurring theme was empathetic personalization. In a panel on data platforms and orchestration, Aviva Life’s CMO Vinit Kapahi warned of “a very fine line” between helpful personalization and intrusive surveillance. He shared an example: a customer was late-night searching HDFC Bank’s site. An alert-driven marketer might bombard her with offers, but Aviva dug deeper and discovered she was simply trying to add a nominee to a policy. “We draw a simple line between what is the customer’s need and… that empathetic sort of solution rather than flooding marketing messages,” Kapahi said. In other words, he favored solving the real problem (updating the nominee) over pushing sales. Other speakers echoed this humane approach: ChargeUp’s Satish Mittal stressed that AI-driven personalization must start with contextual understanding – for his EV charging drivers, that meant tailoring help in local languages and routines, not generic ads. ITC Hotels’ Dilpreet Singh added that hospitality is ultimately a “people business,” so data should augment human sensitivity, not replace it.
A panel on “Agentic AI in Marketing: Autonomous Campaigns and Decision Systems” took this further into action. Moderated by KIE Square’s Kamaljit Anand, the discussion highlighted how AI workflows can autonomously optimize at the local level. Gaganjot Singh of SingleInterface explained agentic AI as goal-oriented automation: “You give it a goal, it works on complex data systems, and then it comes out with an output.” For example, an Indian electronics retailer with ~3,000 stores uses agentic flows to monitor local data (e.g. social media posts, store reviews) and suggest “next best actions” for each outlet. If a local store opens later, AI will note lost business and recommend earlier opening hours – a change that in tests boosted revenue by ~20 percent. Singh pointed out that with so much scale, marketers are moving “from an AI curiosity era to an AI accountability era” – meaning clients now demand clear ROI from AI spend. “Gone are the days… when they were so happy just using AI as a technology. Now the question is: what is the ROI and what is the accountability?” he quipped. The panel illustrated that autonomous AI isn’t just a buzzword – it’s already influencing millions of decisions in the field.
Another panel tackled measurement, attribution and ROI in the AI age. With omnichannel journeys and black-box AI, old rules don’t suffice. MakeMyTrip’s Piyush Kumar explained that leadership now expects granular “cuts” across the full travel funnel, not just top-line campaign metrics. ICICI’s Rik Chakraborty warned against jumping to conclusions: banks look at customers’ full history because “if you beat data, it will tell the truth you want to hear.” Yatra’s Dr. Shakti Goel noted that in travel, nearly every click or page view is tracked to enable “true hyper-personalisation” – an opportunity unlocked by cheap data and AI. The panelists agreed that attribution must adapt: instead of channel-by-channel ROI, marketers should evaluate the user’s end-to-end journey and shared wallet. In the words of the session wrap-up, “ROI should be viewed holistically rather than channel by channel,” and as AI becomes central, companies will need “clear measurement, strong data foundations and the right use cases” more than ever.
Across these discussions, hot topics like generative AI, no-code automation, and customer data platforms also surfaced as enablers. Speakers stressed that personalization at scale depends on clean data and ethical strategy, not just flashy tools. Murthy Palli of Novartis urged pharma and healthcare marketers to build empathy maps and follow strict data ethics, noting that although doctors and patients are now digital, marketing in regulated industries must be extremely mindful of context. The day’s consensus was that AI-driven marketing must balance power with permission – algorithms can suggest the next best action, but humans must define the right objectives and guardrails.
MarTechAI Awards 2025: Recognizing Innovation
The evening brought a gala awards ceremony celebrating India’s MarTech pioneers. The MarTechAI Awards honored brands, agencies and tech firms that used marketing technology to drive real business outcomes. The top honors were claimed by Shriram Finance, Netcore, ReBid and Freo. Shriram Finance won MarTech Brand of the Year (Enterprise) for its transformative AI initiatives, while Freo was named MarTech Brand of the Year (SME). Netcore and ReBid tied for MarTech Agency of the Year, reflecting their broad influence on MarTech solutions. A standout campaign award went jointly to Encalm Hospitality’s 3D anamorphic work and Crocs India. Other multiple winners included Almonds AI, WebEngage and Kalpataru, each taking home several medals (Netcore led with 17 total, including 4 golds, and ReBid won 8 total).
The awards night underscored the very themes of the summit: automation, data intelligence and ROI. The MarTechAI Awards honored and celebrated organisations that have delivered outstanding marketing transformation through the smart use of technology, spotlighting campaigns that bridge creativity with cutting-edge tech. Winners demonstrated that when brands lean into AI, no-code tools and agile data practices, they can deliver measurably better engagement and business outcomes. As one awards presenter put it, this ceremony recognised the most impactful marketers, innovators and technology enablers in India’s digital ecosystem.
Emerging Trends and Future Outlook
Throughout the summit, several industry trends emerged. Generative AI was a running theme: from content production to customer insights, speakers emphasized how GenAI is maturing beyond experimentation. Santhanam’s example of AI-driven content variations shows how generative models can personalize offers at scale, and the Convosight Spotlight session (on GenAI and video intelligence) pointed to deeper future insights from unstructured media. Autonomous campaigns and agentic systems are no longer theoretical: attendees heard concrete cases of AI setting strategic goals and adjusting tactics on the fly. Yet the human element remains critical – both Netcore and panelists stressed that AI only works when grounded in clear goals and human empathy.
Another key theme was data ethics and privacy. Multiple sessions cautioned that personalization cannot trample trust. As ChargeUp’s Mittal noted, even well-meaning defaults can alienate customers, so understanding “situational defaults versus intentional defaults” through data is essential. Healthcare and finance speakers, in particular, highlighted the need for transparency: Yatra’s Palli said his industry voluntarily follows stringent GDPR-like rules as a matter of brand value. In practice, this means building models and CDPs that respect opt-outs and focus on customer benefit as much as business benefit.
On the technology side, no-code and workflow automation were frequently mentioned. One panel (and many conversations) noted that marketers increasingly demand tools that require minimal coding – allowing rapid deployment of AI campaigns across teams. Similarly, companies are investing in customer data platforms (CDPs) and identity resolution to power personalization in real time, as seen in discussions of next-gen CDPs and real-time orchestration. Omni-channel orchestration – from web to chat apps – was a given, and speakers hinted that integrating chatbots, voice, and even metaverse channels could be next.
Marketing ROI was also front and center. With AI yielding trillions of data points, tracking what really moves the needle is harder and more important than ever. In the ROI panel, experts agreed that old attribution models break down with AI-driven journeys. Instead, they urged marketers to tie every AI use case to business metrics – one panelist’s mantra was to view ROI “holistically” and to embed outcome accountability with every AI investment. This perspective was echoed in the awards: winners are judged not just on tech innovation, but on actual lift (e.g. sales growth, efficiency gains) delivered.
As the day wound down, speakers offered some parting thoughts on the AI-powered future of marketing. Ravi Santhanam’s closing line captured the summit’s spirit: “If we want to really reach the market, we must build not just brand engines, but experience engines.” In other words, marketing’s future lies in systems – both human and machine – that deliver the right message to the right person at the right moment, intelligently and scalably. Siddharth Gopalkrishnan similarly emphasized that AI is not about replacing teams but amplifying them: the “four-minute mile” mindset applies – once AI breaks these barriers, marketers can achieve speed and precision previously deemed impossible.
In short, the MarTechAI Summit & Awards 2025 painted a clear picture: the industry is moving beyond AI as a buzzword to AI as a full-stack, outcome-focused reality. Generative models, autonomous systems, no-code workflows and ethical data governance are converging to reshape marketing. India’s MarTech leaders are now pushing the boundaries of what technology can achieve in shaping consumer journeys. The event underscored that success will come to those who marry creativity with intelligent automation, who prioritize customers’ real needs, and who measure every AI dollar by its impact. The road ahead is complex, but one thing is clear: agentic AI and beyond will define the next era of marketing – and these innovators are already sprinting down that track.
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