Dear Reader,

Loyalty is no longer about locking customers in, it’s about opening doors. Automation is no longer confined to factory floors, it’s running in your pocket. And AI? It’s fast becoming the invisible hand shaping entire business strategies.

Here’s what caught our eye this week.

Interoperable Loyalty

Loyalty programs were once about exclusivity, but customers today want freedom and flexibility. From brand alliances to digital ecosystems, loyalty is evolving into something interconnected.

Read the story

Why you should care: Instead of competing for loyalty, brands are starting to share it and that could redefine how you retain (and grow) your most valuable customers.

Automation: The MarTech Glossary

The word “automation” might sound industrial, but in today’s context, it’s personal. From customer service chatbots to predictive campaigns, automation is reshaping how consumers experience brands in real time.

Read the story

Why you should care: Automation isn’t just about efficiency; it’s about creating seamless, human-like experiences at scale — the real frontier of modern marketing.

Dawn of the “Godlike” Enterprise

Recently at ETBrandEquity’s MarTech+ Summit, Asian Paints’ Deepak Bhosale showcased how Agentic AI is already changing marketing. Think multiple AI agents coordinating to run a full campaign — from ideation to execution — without human supervision.

Read the story

Why you should care: If campaigns can be run end-to-end by AI, marketers will need to rethink their role: from operators to orchestrators of intelligent systems.

Stories you might have missed

Former Flipkart executive Ranjith Boyanapalli launches AI-powered shopping assistant

Microsoft to buy AI from Anthropic in shift from OpenAI: Report

Are AI chatbots lying to you? Princeton study reveals how they sacrifice truth for user satisfaction

Sale bots at work: Online marketplaces, retailers turn to AI this festive season

AI-powered meet-up apps fight loneliness

Over to You

If loyalty becomes interoperable, automation becomes invisible, and AI becomes autonomous — what’s left for marketers to own? Is it creativity, strategy, or trust? Add to the conversation with us on LinkedIn @ETBrandEquity.

Stay tuned for the next edition of MarTech+ newsletter, rolling out every week on Wednesday.

— Team ETBrandEquity

We'd love to hear your feedback on this new newsletter.

To become an ETBrandEquity newsletter subscriber and to access newsletter archive, click here.