Agentic AI: smart marketing's new wingman 

Mo Cherif at Sitecore describes how agentic AI will empower organisations to enhance personalisation, improve customer engagement and create operational efficiencies, unlocking significant ROI

 

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already reshaped multiple industries and has more or less become an operational necessity to marketing. Particularly, as customers expect increasingly more personalised and real-time interactions across different channels, AI is working to enhance customer experiences and free-up human time.

 

From streamlining routine tasks to managing complex workflows, we’re seeing its business impact shine through increasingly more.  To show this in practice, 86% of marketers want to leverage the technology to hyper-personalise their brands. 

 

Despite many marketing firms looking at how Generative AI can help them realise substantial gains, most are yet to see its value outside of ideation, summarisation and basic content generation. 

 

However, 2025 is set to be a pivotal year for Generative AI, with more mature Agentic AI capabilities designed to operate autonomously – unlike basic generative AI solutions, which primarily help in ideation, creation and summarisation., Agentic AI uses a number of AI agents (just like a team) to optimise and execute strategies autonomously, helping to relieve resource constraints and unlock the ability to do more with less. 

 

For marketers specifically, success will depend on how well brands can work alongside AI without compromising authenticity, creativity or customer trust.

 

Marketers that embrace this, will not only stand out in the marketplace but also benefit from AI’s ability to analyse data, streamline operations and generate strong business insights.

 

Enhancing marketing, not replacing marketers

Whilst the possibilities of agentic AI are vast, its purpose is not to replace human marketers but to collaborate with them, to avoid AI becoming too intrusive or inauthentic. And, whilst customers may appreciate AI-driven insights, they also want to feel in control of their own experiences. 

 

In short, when marketing automation becomes too ‘aggressive’ or eerily predictive, trust and impact erode. The main message for marketers is that this is a trial-and-error process, whereby teams will come to grips with what tasks agents are best suited to handle and address effectively. At the same time, human oversight is key, to ensure that both employees and customers trust the process and most importantly, all sensitive data is protected and to keep control of essential marketing decisions.

 

In order to do so, marketers will look for AI tools that augment their workflow, not that go off and try to do all the work, think of how you assign work to team members within a plan, you AI agents need to be just that, another member of your team

 

 The shift to hyper-personalisation

One of the core offerings that agentic AI will offer to marketers is the ability to move past the ‘one-size-fits all’ approach. In contrast to current iterations, agents can drive hyper-personalisation at scale, delivering tailored customer experiences across multiple touchpoints. Agentic AI will have the ability to analyse customer interactions, preferences and behaviours without human intervention. 

 

Whether it’s via email, social media or an in-app experience, agents will also empower brands to build deeper relationships with their audiences whilst improving engagement and ROI. 

 

Beyond personalisation, agentic AI will anticipate customer needs before they arise and engage with more sophisticated responses. Instead of solely responding to queries, agents will predict potential issues and offer proactive solutions to more complex queries – almost like the déjà vu moment in The Matrix, where the system subtly reveals what’s coming next.

 

For humans, this level of automation not only improves customer satisfaction but also allows teams to dedicate their time to more intensive tasks such as problem-solving, strategy and creative work. 

 

At the same time, maintaining transparency is crucial. In this way, AI labelling and watermarking is essential as consumers will demand clear indicators of AI-generated content or algorithm driven personalisation.

 

AI as the ultimate marketing sidekick

Agentic AI isn’t setting out to enhance creativity directly, rather it’s creating space for it. Often marketing teams spend significant chunks of time on repetitive tasks such as campaign optimisation, scheduling posts and analysing performance data. This shift will free up human time to focus on strategic, creative, and high-value activities. The result being – great productivity, but also more impactful marketing initiatives that drive revenue and customer loyalty.

 

This collaborative approach will create a new dynamic where AI handles the operational heavy lifting, allowing teams to focus on value-driven outcomes. 

 

However, for AI to truly deliver results that require minimal edits, it needs to understand your brand, your tone of voice and how your team works – similar to a newly onboarded employee. The more time invested into training AI on your brand guidelines, messaging and workflows, the better it will be at producing content that aligns with your brand strategy and customer interests. This process ensures that AI becomes an extension of your team, rather than just another tool.

 

Navigating the road ahead

Overall, the key takeaway is clear, agentic AI is not here to replace human marketing creativity, rather to assist and amplify it. Marketers that can embrace this technology will unlock new levels of efficiency and personalisation, provided they can strike the right balance between automation and human oversight. 

 

And, while many marketing firms are already investing in agentic AI, the next 12 months will be critical. With the technology maturing rapidly, companies will need to prepare for the full-scale deployment of AI-driven solutions that can radically improve operational efficiency and marketing effectiveness. 

 

At the same time, there are of course complexities to be aware of. Organisations are encouraged to take a balanced approach between automation and human oversight, so they can best determine how to deploy effective AI solutions without compromising brand integrity or customer loyalty. 

 

For the year ahead, the question is no longer whether businesses should adopt agentic AI, but more so, how effectively they can integrate it to stay competitive, but remain authentic, in an ever-evolving landscape.    

 

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Mo Cherif is Senior Director of Generative AI at Sitecore

 

Main Image courtesy of iStockPhoto.com and ipopba