There has never been a larger gap in marketing between what can be done in theory and what can be done in practice. Imagine starting a $1 million campaign that works better while you sleep, that’s what the AI-native era promises. On the one hand, we get more than 700 trillion data signals across people’s watching, browsing and buying habits and we get them faster than before. On the other side, marketers are under a lot of pressure to setup highly sophisticated campaigns with complex measurement mechanisms in place, that in the end delivers meaningful commercial impacts and complex measurement as quickly as possible.
Old ways of doing things, including manually crunching numbers, strict standards and human-led optimizations, just don’t work anymore. The best thing to do is not work harder, but smarter. AI agents fill in the gaps by combining technical accuracy with business impact.The Engineering Backbone: AI Agents at Work
AI agents are not only software that follows instructions like traditional automation but also as partners who can work on their own and evolve with time.
This is what they do:
- Process huge amounts of real-time data, such as what customers are watching, browsing and buying, as well as contextual indications like the time of day, device they are using, micro and macro level signals, etc.,
- Find deep audience patterns that people would overlook, like micro-segments or little changes in interaction over time.
- Change your media plans on the fly by adjusting bids, evolve strategies and pursue multi level optimizations in real time.
From Insights to Boardroom Impact
It is critical that technology enables leaders to deliver results and business outcomes. AI agents are doing more than just speeding up processes and procedures; they’re changing how media decisions are made and tracked. AI agents are changing performance marketing by being able to quickly change budgets or figure out the appropriate message for the right audience at the right time.
What are the benefits?
- Better optimizations that increase ROI
- Better targeting of the audience that leads to more sales
- Smart utilization of the budget that decreases the expense of getting new customers
- Better targeting that increases the lifetime value of a customer
A New Marketing Operating System: AI and Automation
AI changes the game by adding a new type of operating system, even though marketing automation isn’t new. When it comes to traditional automation, there are strict “if X, then Y” regulations. It’s useful, but not very useful. Marketers don’t have to put out fires every day anymore; they can focus on what actually makes a difference: telling great stories, creating unique experiences, and coming up with new ideas for long-term growth.
AI agents work in adaptive loops that get better over time:
- They can react to fluctuations in performance and react to it by leveraging appropriate algorithms/models
- They learn from data all the time, which improves the results of their campaigns at every level
- They take care of the boring, repetitive tasks so that human teams can focus on strategy and creativity.
Getting Through Problems: Trust and Governance
AI agents can be a big boon to the business, however one needs to by mindful of what this entails. In marketing, this entails keeping customers’ trust, ensuring brand safety and upholding data privacy.
Some important things to think about are:
- Data privacy: Marketers have to follow the rules set by severe laws like GDPR and India’s DPDP
- Algorithmic bias: AI models need to learn how to be ethical so they don’t reinforce negative preconceptions or leave out some groups
- Explainability: This is a key requirement to building trust and buy-in from stakeholders as AI cannot be perceived as a blackbox
- Brand safety: Ensuring that ads reach the right audiences through right channels and making sure that brands ads do not appear alongside content that could harm its reputation, targeting MFA sites, etc.,
Looking Ahead: Becoming Truly AI-Native
Integrating AI into your stack is just the starting point. True transformation requires a fundamental shift in how marketing teams operate. AI-native organizations rethink their approach from the ground up starting with the business problem, ensuring data is structured for intelligent systems, and tuning the application stack for continuous learning and adaptability.
The future belongs to teams where marketers, analysts, and engineers work alongside AI agents as strategic partners. These agents don’t just automate they learn, optimize, and evolve in real time, turning fragmented signals into foresight and enabling media plans that respond dynamically to market shifts.
What was once experimental is now mission critical. AI-powered advertising is no longer confined to innovation labs it’s driving decisions in boardrooms. The question is: will your brand lead this transformation, or be left navigating yesterday’s data?
The author is Krishnakumar Govindarajan, CTO of MiQ.
Disclaimer: The views expressed are solely of the author and ETCIO does not necessarily subscribe to it. ETCIO shall not be responsible for any damage caused to any person/organization directly or indirectly.
