MAM
From Chai Breaks to AI Breaks: How Indian Marketers Are Letting Robots Handle the Hustle
MUMBAI: There is a huge change happening in India’s digital marketing scene. 73 per cent of marketing teams worldwide now use AI tools for jobs that used to take up 40 per cent of their workday. However, Indian marketers are at a crucial point right now. Most people are not using AI solutions appropriately; therefore, they miss out on smart automation’s life-changing power.
The Task Delegation Revolution: A Chance Worth Rs 4 Lakh Crore
The Indian digital marketing business, worth more than Rs 4 lakh crore, is experiencing what experts call “the productivity revolution.” AI tools are no longer just ideas for the future; they are real tools that are changing the way marketing teams work at advertising agencies in Mumbai, IT startups in Bengaluru, and e-commerce giants in Delhi.
What AI Tools Do Best for Digital Marketers
Content Scheduling and Localisation: The fashion store Myntra has successfully used AI tools to manage content scheduling in 12 Indian languages. These agents automatically change campaign messages for regional festivals like Durga Puja in Bengal and Onam in Kerala. Their AI systems currently take care of 80 per cent of social media scheduling, allowing creative teams to concentrate on campaign planning.
Lead Scoring and Customer Segmentation: Bengaluru’s B2B SaaS business Freshworks used AI tools for lead scoring, which led to a 45 per cent increase in conversion rates. The system looks at how Indian businesses act during certain times, such as when they get budget clearances at the end of the fiscal year and when they buy things during festivals.
A/B Testing at Scale: Paytm, a Delhi-based finance firm, employs AI tools to conduct large-scale A/B tests across diverse demographics. They evaluate everything from colour preferences (green vs. saffron themes around Independence Day) to messages that work for people with different income levels. Their AI-based testing method has increased click-through rates by 35 per cent and cut campaign setup time by 60 per cent.
Real Numbers of Impact: During the 2024 holiday season, a well-known e-commerce firm based in Mumbai that sells ethnic clothing cut campaign management time by 40 per cent and increased Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) by 25 per cent. The AI tool changed how much to bid on Google Ads and Facebook campaigns on its own, based on changes in demand in real time during the busiest buying times of Diwali.
The Human-AI Partnership Model: Changing the Roles of Marketers
The best Indian marketing teams aren’t using AI instead of people; they’re making strong partnerships that use AI’s speed and human inventiveness.
What People Are Still Best At
Cultural Intelligence: AI can digest data, but human marketers are better at identifying cultural differences. A Chennai-based agency’s human team recently stopped a big cultural mistake when its AI proposed utilising beef images in a campaign aimed at South Indian vegetarians.
Strategic Interpretation: AI tools give information, and people give it meaning. During COVID-19, Flipkart’s AI algorithms showed strange purchase habits. Human strategists saw this as a sign that people wanted more home exercise equipment and kitchen appliances, which led to successful pivot campaigns.
Crisis Management: During the farmer demonstrations in 2024, human marketers at different companies made quick judgments to stop or change advertisements. AI tools couldn’t do this without human help.
What AI tools Are Good At
AI tools monitor social media sentiment in regional languages 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and inform human teams about possible problems before they get worse.
Predictive Analytics: Zomato’s AI tools can predict when people will want more food during cricket matches and immediately change marketing budgets and inventory suggestions.
Personalisation at Scale: Hotstar, a streaming service, employs AI tools to make content recommendations for 400 million customers, making it feasible to create unique marketing experiences that would be difficult for human teams to handle.
A 3-Step Process That Works for Implementation Reality Check
Step 1: Start small and learn quickly
Start with easy automated chores, such as scheduling social media posts or sending out basic email marketing. Urbanclap, an Indian startup now called Urban Company, started by automating appointment confirmations and then added more complicated customer journey mapping. Many Indian businesses rush through this phase, making AI work poorly, and teams do not want to work.
Step 2: Smart Scaling
Add increasingly difficult duties, such as assessing leads and personalising basic content. Nykaa, an e-commerce site, grew by focusing on one group of customers (urban women aged 25–35) before branching out to other groups. Ensure AI knows how Indians shop, like the importance of wedding and festival seasons and regional preferences.
Step 3: Strategic Integration
Use AI tools for strategic tasks like optimising campaigns and performing predictive analytics. Swiggy, a big food delivery company, reached this point by adding AI tools to all of its marketing tools, from acquiring new customers to keeping them.
How to Avoid Common Mistakes
The Problem: AI tools often have trouble maintaining a consistent brand voice across Indian languages and cultural settings.
The Answer: Ogilvy India, an advertising agency located in Mumbai, produced thorough brand voice standards in Hindi, English, and regional languages, with examples for distinct cultural settings.
Worries About Data Privacy
The Truth: Marketers need to be extra careful about how they use data now that India has a Personal Data Protection Act.
Best Practice: Use AI solutions that put privacy first and follow local rules while still being useful.
Risks of Too Much Automation
Warning Signs: Customer satisfaction generally goes down when all human touchpoints go away.
Example from India: A luxury firm based in Delhi first automated all of its customer care responses, which led to complaints about how impersonal they were. They were able to employ AI for early responses while making sure that humans handled more complicated questions.
Important Success Metrics
Effect on Revenue: There is a direct link between using AI and sales growth.
Customer Satisfaction: Keeping high NPS scores even while more work is being done by machines
Market Share Growth: Having better AI implementation gives you a competitive edge.
Cultural Relevance Score: How well AI keeps a brand relevant in different Indian marketplaces
Role Change vs. Role Loss
Changing Roles:
Digital Marketing Managers → AI Marketing Strategists
Content Creators → AI Content Managers
Performance Marketers → AI Performance Boosters
New Roles:
Trainers for AI Marketing
Experts in Cultural AI
Managers of Human-AI Collaboration
The Competitive Edge of Being First
Indian businesses that employ AI tools early are realising big benefits:
. Cost Efficiency: Marketing operations costs go down by 30 per cent to 50 per cent
. Market Responsiveness: the ability to quickly adjust to changes in how customers act
. Scalability: the ability to grow more quickly in India’s many markets
Looking Ahead: The Future of AI Marketing in India
AI tools will be very important for marketers in India as the country progresses toward becoming a 5 trillion dollars economy. India has the most varied market in the world. In the next ten years of Indian digital marketing, the organisations that can find the right mix between AI efficiency and human innovation will be the most successful.
The transformation isn’t about replacing marketers with AI; it’s about giving Indian marketers the tools they need to make ads that are more culturally relevant, effective, and impactful. It’s not a question of whether to use AI tools; it’s a question of how quickly and effectively you can do it while still keeping the personal touch that Indian customers love.
The future of Indian marketers belongs to those who can successfully use artificial intelligence and human understanding to create marketing experiences that appeal to a wide range of people and achieve measurable business goals.
The writer is a digital marketing specialist with extensive experience using AI in Indian markets. His company, C Com Digital, has worked with top companies to successfully add AI tools to their marketing operations while still remaining culturally relevant and connecting with people. By Chandan Bagwe – Founder/Director of C Com Digital
Brands
YES Bank hands the keys to SBI veteran Vinay Tonse as it bets on a new era
Former SBI managing director appointed as YES Bank’s new MD and CEO
MUMBAI: YES Bank is done rebuilding. Now it wants to grow. The private sector lender has appointed Vinay Muralidhar Tonse as managing director and chief executive officer-designate, with RBI approval secured and a start date of April 6, 2026 confirmed. The three-year term signals the bank’s intent to shift gears from crisis recovery to full-throttle expansion.
Tonse, 60, is no stranger to scale. Most recently managing director at State Bank of India, he oversaw a retail book of roughly $800bn in deposits and advances, one of the largest in the country. Before that, he ran SBI Mutual Fund from August 2020 to December 2022, a stint that saw assets under management surge from Rs 4.32 lakh crore to Rs 7.32 lakh crore across market cycles. Add stints in Singapore and four years leading SBI’s overseas operations in Osaka, and the incoming chief arrives with a genuinely global CV.
His academic grounding is equally solid: a commerce degree from St Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bengaluru, and a master’s in commerce from Bangalore University.
The appointment follows an extensive search and evaluation process by the bank’s Nomination and Remuneration Committee. NRC chairperson Nandita Gurjar said the committee unanimously backed Tonse, citing his leadership track record, governance credentials and ability to drive the bank’s next phase of transformation.
Non-executive chairman Rama Subramaniam Gandhi was unequivocal. “I am certain that Vinay Tonse, with his vast experience as a senior banker, will propel YES Bank to its next phase of growth,” Gandhi said, adding that the bank remains focused on strengthening its retail and corporate banking franchises and expanding its branch network.
Rajeev Kannan, non-executive director and senior executive at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, the bank’s largest shareholder, said Tonse’s experience across retail, corporate banking, global markets and asset management positioned him well to lead the lender. SMBC said it looks forward to working with Tonse and the board as YES Bank pursues its ambition of becoming a top-tier private sector lender anchored in strong governance and sustainable growth.
Tonse succeeds Prashant Kumar, who took the helm in March 2020 when YES Bank was in freefall following a severe financial crisis, and spent six years painstakingly stabilising the institution, rebuilding governance and restoring operational scale. Gandhi was generous: “The bank remains indebted to Prashant Kumar, who is responsible for much of what a strong financial powerhouse YES Bank is today.”
Tonse, for his part, struck a purposeful note. “Together with the board and my colleagues, I remain deeply committed to creating long-term value for all our stakeholders,” he said, pledging to build on Kumar’s foundation guided by his personal motto: Make A Difference.
Beyond the balance sheet, Tonse played cricket at college and club level and represented Karnataka in archery at the national championships — sports he credits with teaching him teamwork, situational leadership, discipline and focus. In quieter moments, he reaches for retro Kannada music, classic Hindi songs, and the crooning of Engelbert Humperdinck, Mukesh and Kishore Kumar.
YES Bank has its steady-handed rebuilder in Kumar to thank for survival. Now it has a scale-obsessed growth banker at the wheel. The next chapter starts April 6.
