AI emerges as new nerve centre of brand strategy as businesses rethink value creation

Artificial intelligence is no longer the distant frontier it once seemed. Over the past year, it has quietly, and sometimes dramatically, altered how brands understand their consumers, shape their offerings and position themselves in a market that now shifts in real time. What was once considered a supporting tool has begun to influence decisions at the very core of business strategy, mostly in good ways.

Across industries, companies are discovering that AI’s greatest impact lies not in novelty, but in clarity. For marketers long accustomed to storytelling as their primary craft, this moment demands a reorientation.

The brand is no longer built only through communication; it increasingly grows through the experiences it enables and the frictions it removes. AI’s role, in that sense, is not to replace intuition but to sharpen it, allowing businesses to make decisions at the pace at which consumers actually move.

When asked how AI is emerging as a pivotal factor of brand strategy, Animesh Roy, Chief Services & Solutions (Pravesh Business), Tata Steel Limited, said, “A brand is nothing but a promise. AI finds hidden customer insights in real-time data. This allows brands to personalize their promises to millions of individuals instantly, building strong loyalty and affinity at scale.”

“AI helps in making informed data backed decisions faster which otherwise would have taken longer. For example, in the banking sector, AI helps in risk assessment and fraud detection by identifying anomalies within vast dataset, thereby preventing financial loss and building customer trust,” he added.

These questions, of value, relevance, and the new responsibilities that come with intelligence, will be central to the CII Brand Conclave 2025 on December 17. Among the speakers is Dr. Erich Joachimsthaler, one of the world’s most respected thinkers on brand strategy. Joachimsthaler has long argued that brands must create genuine value in people’s lives, not merely craft persuasive messages. His presence in India this year feels particularly timely, as organisations grapple with how to blend technological capability with purpose-driven growth.

“AI is unlocking value at both the macro and micro levels of a business. Senior leaders now use AI to reimagine products, pricing, and large-scale innovations by integrating more data and more dimensions into every decision,” said Namit Bajoria, Managing Director, Kutchina Homemaker.

“But the real breakthrough is the micro value creation happening across hundreds of small tasks that were previously invisible or underserved. When every person can solve every small problem with AI, the cumulative impact often exceeds the value of a few big initiatives,” Bajoria continued.

What stands out in the conversations emerging across boardrooms is that AI is forcing a more honest reckoning with what consumers truly want. Instead of relying solely on assumptions or legacy research methods, companies are now equipped to observe real behaviour, uncover hidden motivations and respond with precision. This, however, also places new demands on leaders: transparency in data use, sensitivity to bias, and a renewed commitment to safeguarding trust at a time when automation can easily erode it.

India’s businesses, especially in consumer-facing sectors, are beginning to treat AI not as a cost-saving mechanism but as a foundation for long-term brand building.

“Building a strategy to win entails a deeper consumer understanding, a robust sense of one’s competitive advantage and view on future directions that the market can take. With AI applications, the ability to analyze consumer trends and iteratively generate solutions is significantly higher. This will have a deep impact on how various stakeholders work together on developing and deploying brand strategy,” Sanjay Srinivas, Vice President Marketing, ITC PCPB said.

The ambition is no longer to simply digitise operations, but to redesign how value itself is produced and delivered. The firms that succeed will likely be those that approach AI with both ambition and restraint, embracing its possibilities while acknowledging the human judgment it cannot replace.

As the CII Brand Conclave 2025 approaches, the mood within industry circles is one of curiosity rather than certainty. AI may not have all the answers, but it has started asking the right questions: About relevance, resilience, and the future shape of competition. And for brands navigating this transition, that shift in inquiry may be the most significant change of all.