‘Personalisation no longer about chasing conversions but understanding moments’

The MarTechAI Summit saw a diverse set of industry leaders converge for an insightful session on “The New Personalisation Playbook: From Segments to Truly Contextual Journeys.” 

Industry leaders agreed that personalisation was no longer about chasing conversions and was about understanding moments, reducing friction and earning trust in a landscape being reshaped by stronger data regulation and smarter tech.

Opening the discussion, moderator Brij Pahwa set the tone by stressing that old-school segmentation no longer matches how consumers move across digital touchpoints. Shubham Chaudhary, SVP and BU Head at Policybazaar, picked up from there, arguing that personalisation must focus on easing the customer’s journey rather than boosting CTRs. He explained how Policybazaar blends past interactions with real-time signals to guide users through insurance decisions. Integrating WhatsApp and RCS into journeys, he said, has helped simplify complex choices and make the buying process more transparent.

This idea of stitching signals together seamlessly flowed into Bharti Singhal’s perspective from Airtel Digital. Managing vast data across telecom, content and broadband ecosystems, she said the key challenge is bringing everything into one view. Once that happens, brands can act on context: pitching broadband during summer vacations, identifying heavy streamers or anticipating demand during IPL. She emphasised that India’s DPDP Act is pushing brands towards greater transparency and giving users the power to decide how much access they want to give.

Tabrez Alam from Segumento extended this logic further, saying personalisation today isn’t about knowing who the user is, but what moment they’re in. He explained how anonymised digital identities and consent-safe signals allow marketers to act without intrusive profiling. Irrelevant impressions feel creepy, he said, but context-based recommendations are welcomed. That shift, he added, is what will separate responsible personalisation from the old spray-and-pray approach.

Hospitality brought a contrasting view through Vikram Singh of ITC, who reminded the audience that not every category is digital-first. For ITC, personalisation still hinges on small gestures like remembering room preferences or timing messages respectfully. Even with large datasets from hotels, events and restaurants, Singh said loyalty members respond best to relevance, not volume, and even traditional triggers like birthdays continue to outperform many advanced tactics.

Healthcare added its own complexity. Shashank Gupta of Apollo 24/7 explained how the company handles deeply sensitive data across hospitals, clinics and pharmacies. Apollo separates caregivers from patients before crafting communication and ensures that reminders or follow-ups help users manage their health without crossing emotional or ethical lines. Whether it’s refill nudges or vitamin deficiency follow-ups, the focus, Gupta said, is support without intrusion.

As the panel neared its close, discussion shifted to the next frontier: agentic AI. Speakers agreed that the coming phase of personalisation will involve AI systems not just analysing context but autonomously acting on it. From adjusting communication frequency to orchestrating entire customer journeys in real time, agentic AI is expected to reduce manual guesswork and finally deliver the “right message, right moment” promise marketers have been chasing for years. But even here, the panel emphasised that trust, consent and transparency must anchor every innovation.

The session ended with a clear message: meaningful personalisation will depend less on collecting more data and more on using it wisely, contextually and responsibly. And with agentic AI on the horizon, the brands that prioritise user trust today will be the ones thriving in tomorrow’s personalised world.