GenAI Is Changing the Way India Inc Connects With Customers

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After a successful summit in New Delhi last month, MIT Sloan Management Review India is taking the Strategy Shift Forum to Bengaluru on 25 September. The gathering will bring together MIT professors, global AI experts, and business heads to equip Indian leaders with critical insights into navigating the next wave of AI transformation. For more details, speaker announcements, and to request an invitation, visit here.

For Indian companies trying to keep pace with fast-changing consumer expectations, personalization has become non-negotiable. And artificial intelligence is now doing the heavy lifting. From tailoring onboarding questions in financial services to coming up with real-time offers on loyalty apps, AI is increasingly shaping how brands connect, convert, and retain customers.

A recent survey by MIT Sloan Management Review and Boston Consulting Group found that 84% of AI experts support mandatory disclosure of AI use in customer-facing products and services. That kind of consensus reflects how deeply AI is now embedded in brand strategy, and why trust and transparency are critical to its adoption.

Personalization Beyond Numbers

In the financial sector, AI has become integral to how companies assess and serve their customers. At Home Credit India, the marketing team relies on data and AI to remove friction from the user journey.

“With the current tools, it helps us triangulate better and consume more data in less time so that the customer journey is frictionless,” Ashish Tiwari, Chief Marketing Officer, Home Credit India, said. The difference AI makes is in the shift from segment-level logic to true individualization. “Your financial need is very different from mine… so it’s important that we reach you with the right set of offers.”

That level of tailoring, whether in the form of dynamic onboarding, real-time offers, or curated service conversations, is allowing finance brands to respond to users in ways that feel relevant and timely.

Hyper-Personalization in Marketing

For customer-facing businesses, AI is pushing personalization to the next level. “Hyper-personalization means we don’t treat customers just as prospects, but understand their needs, and target them through an entire journey,” Chander Shekhar, Regional Sales Director at Salesforce, said.

Journey mapping, once a manual marketing task, is now driven by behavioral signals and real-time decisions. “Based on their behavioral patterns, which they’re displaying at that moment in their buying journey, we target them through Journey Builder,” Shekhar said.

From lead generation to service queries, AI agents are stepping in across the funnel.

“What you want is your ability as a brand to identify the customer and then target them in a specific way,” he added.

Personalization at Scale

In sectors where customer retention hinges on nuanced experiences, such as like hospitality, AI is becoming essential to managing complexity.

“Today, most organizations have a database. Managing that manually is impossible,” Dilpreet Singh, Head of Loyalty, CRM and Partnerships at ITC Hotels Limited, said. “Technology has played a vital role in segmentation, deduplication, and cleaning.”

At Tata Digital, the model has evolved beyond segmentation to individualization.

“Earlier, we would form customer personas manually. Now with AI, you can individualize across data points in a very nuanced manner,” Satyam Mehra, Chief Business and Strategy Officer at Tata Digital, said.

On Tata Neu, the personalization is visible from the first touchpoint. “The persona you get when you log on—the page we show you—will be different from what someone else sees,” Mehra said. AI enables that dynamic tailoring while adhering to privacy guardrails.

The payoff isn’t just short-term relevance. “The means to drive retention and loyalty through engagement are stronger than ever,” Mehra added. “Your ability to understand the customer has never been higher.”

With AI Personalization in the Picture

Consumer expectations are keeping pace with this shift. A 2024 IBM Institute for Business Value study found that 60% of consumers want to use AI applications while shopping. A McKinsey report said that 71% expect companies to deliver personalized experiences, and 67% say they get frustrated when that doesn’t happen.

That disconnect has business consequences. According to McKinsey, fast-growing firms generate 40% more revenue from personalization than slower-moving peers.

AI personalization isn’t confined to consumer apps. The same principles apply to B2B buying journeys, employee engagement platforms, and procurement workflows, or anywhere people now expect digital experiences to “know” them.