Most marketing teams today use AI to save time on tasks such as drafting emails, creating image variants, and summarising long documents. However, Anand Jain, Co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of CleverTap, a customer engagement and marketing automation platform, says basic tools that do these jobs rarely improve company profits.

In a masterclass on marketing strategy at TechSparks 2026, Jain urged leaders to look beyond simple shortcuts.

“We are going to talk about how you go from using AI for fun and games all the way to using AI to generate actual business results," he said.

While creating content using AI makes the job faster and saves time, Jain questioned whether it truly drives growth, asking, “Is it actually going to impact business results or it is just more of the same?”

Traditional digital campaigns usually operate on a push model wherein companies decide what they want to sell instead of understanding what consumers want to buy. Whereas, a local shop assistant in an offline channel remembers a customer’s personal taste, notices immediate reactions, and suggests items tailored to their budget and style. Digital marketing must adopt a similar mindset.

“Not what I want to sell, (but) what my customer wants to buy. So you flip this around,” Jain said.

Instead of broadcasting generic promotions to large groups, modern marketing engines should interpret live customer actions to match individual needs.

This approach marks a shift towards the highest level of AI maturity, known as 'real-time decisioning'.

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