We’re in the age of marketing hyper-personalization—where brands aren’t just marketing to consumers, but rather anticipating and responding to their needs in real time.
Think about the last time you scrolled through Instagram, browsed an e-commerce site, or listened to a Spotify radio station. The ads, recommendations, and content probably felt eerily relevant.
Or have you suspected your Netflix recommendations are reading your mind? That’s AI at work. In fact, Netflix reports that around 80% of all content streamed on the platform is chosen via the ‘recommended content’ feature.
More than once, you’ve probably caught yourself saying, “My phone must be listening to me…”
Spoiler alert: It’s not. But AI is watching, learning, and optimizing—processing mountains of data to create an experience so tailored that it feels like digital déjà vu.
The rise of generative AI and machine learning is redefining what "personalized engagement" means for brands and consumers alike.
At its core, AI is an information-processing beast. It sifts through enormous amounts of data—far more than any human marketing team could handle manually, even if they wanted to—and detects patterns and predicts behaviors.
By analyzing browsing habits, purchase history, and even social media interactions, AI tools can pinpoint individual preferences and deliver content that resonates.
This goes beyond simple demographics. Traditional marketing segmentation relied on broad categories like age, location, or income level.
AI, on the other hand, can create micro-segments based on highly specific behaviors. Instead of targeting "millennial women in urban areas," AI and related martech tools can help target "people who just researched Patagonia hiking gear and have shown interest in sustainable brands."
AI-powered sentiment analysis tools also give brands a deeper understanding of customer emotions. This includes Harris QuestAI, which can process vast amounts of data in order to discern key themes and narratives that your (human) eyes might easily miss.
By scanning everything from tweets to Reddit threads, AI tools can keep a close finger on the pulse of consumer sentiment, helping marketers tweak messaging in real time.
Consider Propellers—a new product that grew out of Stagwell Marketing Cloud’s “Spark Labs” initiative (in which SMC partners with agencies throughout the Stagwell network to create tools for specific use cases).
Propellers is an AI-powered brainstorming partner for pitches and creative ideation, harnessing a variety of the most cutting-edge LLMs to help write briefs and generate imagery. "The tool lets you dig deep into your brand, revealing insights about different audience profiles, and transforming those insights into tailored campaign ideas and visuals that connect with each individual," says SMC product manager Abhi Ademmagari.
Perhaps you're trying to sell a new line of drinkable yogurt to twentysomething gym rats on the East Coast, using Instagram ads.
Propellers’ GenAI functionality will swiftly produce demographically relevant assets tailored to platform specifications. Those are visual drafts that your design team can easily adapt into polished creative (a human-in-the-loop is essential here, given that AI is notoriously still finicky when it comes to rendering text).
Hyper-personalization goes beyond what you see—it’s also about how you experience a brand.
AI and other tools are powering the real-time customization of digital experiences. Instead of presenting the same homepage to every visitor, websites can now dynamically adjust layouts, messaging, and even pricing based on user behavior.
As Michael Treff, CEO of Code + Theory, imagines it: ““Consider a typical e-commerce site. AI-powered personalization can adjust backgrounds and content in real time to optimize user conversion.”
“Think of it as personalization on steroids,” he adds. “AI is allowing us to imagine a scenario in which every aspect of the digital experience adapts to the specific user, from the content to the UX and UI, all based on what they do on the platform, how they engage, how they navigate.”
On a more basic level, a website might adapt so that:
And let’s not forget AI-driven chatbots. These aren’t the sad, keyword-based bots of the past—today’s AI-powered virtual assistants understand context, sentiment, and intent.
They can offer personalized support, make product recommendations, and even upsell based on real-time customer interactions.
In short: AI is making digital experiences feel less static and generic, and more like a personalized concierge service.
So, what’s next?
At Stagwell Marketing Cloud, we’re intensely aware of the expectations that consumers now have of brands.
SMC platforms like SmartAssets can help predict the creative elements which will resonate with specific audiences, while also ensuring that all yours assets are media-ready preflight. The People Platform allows you to leverage anonymized location data to launch targeted ads based on how a consumer has moved and behaved in the real world.
The list goes on. If you’re still depending on one-size-fits-all ads, you’re going to swiftly lose a consumer base that now expects more personalization and engagement.
It’s yet another reason why industry leaders need to get serious about integrating cutting-edge martech into their day-to-day, or risk getting left behind.
