Latest / ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence / Consent, Compliance And Conversational AI: Marketing's New Reality: Nitin Seth, CEO & Co-Founder, SMS Magic & Conversive

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Consent, Compliance And Conversational AI: Marketing's New Reality: Nitin Seth, CEO & Co-Founder, SMS Magic & Conversive · ContraMinds Podcast - Unlocking Personal Growth and Professional Excellence

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: So I I see a lot of people learning content creation and kind of how to go deep into content production.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_03: So that's a new area which a lot of people have kind of mastered.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_03: People are starting their own channels, even they are producing reels on their own Instagram channel, reels and stories on YouTube.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_03: So content production is definitely one, but also in terms of marketing, look at the marketing platforms, conversational AI platforms, uh, and the digital marketing platforms, which are growing like anything, although they are the same for the last five years.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, understanding digital technology landscape is going to be a lot more important.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_03: So there will be a need for a lot of digital marketeers, and there will be a lead for a uh the content production is already changing and it will kind of mature and change quite a bit, uh, just like you are doing this podcast.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_03: I'm sure you would have done other things uh in your as a marketer earlier.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, getting used to that uh new content production methodology and the new digital uh technologies and infrastructure.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: The world of marketing is no more a monologue with proliferation of channels, technology, and digital.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: The way marketers need to have conversations with their customers is undergoing transformation and disruption.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: In an AI-first world, privacy-led thinking and technology becoming core to how marketing gets done.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: The world of marketing, in the way brands need to have conversations with their customers, is changing.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: It is in this context and background that our guest today is an experienced conversational AI marketer.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: He's a technologist and he's handled brands across developed and emerging markets.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: Our guest today is Nitin Said.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Nathan Said is the co-founder and CEO of Screen Magic Mobile Media, a company that's based out of Pune, India.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: I started my conversation with Nitin asking him about the world of conversational AI, the technical infrastructure that's needed to host and store permissions, and how preference centers need to be built for a privacy-first world.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: I then spoke to him about how the way marketers and brands have to rethink their frameworks for communication and having a dialogue with their customers in an era of cookies and permission-led world.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: He explained the various techniques that brands are preparing themselves for and the platform that is helping them build this permission-led marketing infrastructure.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: He gave examples around developed and emerging markets and categories on how marketers need to rethink and build this capability.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: It was a very, very enriching and a valuable conversation, and it was something that had a lot of learnings for how tech-led marketing is becoming more and more core to how marketers need to think about their brand strategies and their engagement modules.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_01: Over to my conversation with Nitin Set.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: This episode of the Super CMO show was made possible by the great folks at Moving Walls.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: Moving Walls provides a global technology platform built by out-of-home advertising experts for automating the process of planning, buying, executing, and measuring out-of-home campaigns.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: Moving Walls helps leading brands and agencies to move to audience-based planning, improve turnaround times with automated proposals, and implement programmatic digital, out-of-form and verify campaign performances.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Moving Walls helps measure, reach and influence moving audiences across the world.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_01: For more information, log on to www.movingwalls.com.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: Nitin uh, most interesting for me was your educational background.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_01: So you know from IIT Bombay with an engineering background, uh, how did you jump into marketing and how have you taken that up as your profession?
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh that's a very good uh interesting um journey.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_03: So I've had my meandering uh as a kind of professional, as an entrepreneur.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so basically we started doing consumer engagement, that has been the goal, and mobile was a very attractive channel to drive consumer engagement.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so that was uh where I was doing research in my first job, and uh then I had colleagues who were doing uh some research around uh mobile technologies, so that is what drove me into entrepreneurship.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and since then I've been involved in what you call as customer experience now, mobile engagement, interactive engagement, which we used to call it in the 2000s.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: So it has always been there.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um I guess uh I'm a technologist, but marketing guys use a lot more technology than many other functions now, so that may be the reason I'm here.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: Nikil, if you look at the world of marketing, uh it's largely moving to a privacy-first world, right?
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that's a massive transition that's happening.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh can you talk me through the importance of marketers having to understand this privacy-first philosophy and what are the key points that they need to keep in their marketing plans if we really have to tackle a privacy first world?
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_03: That's a very intriguing question.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we ourselves, uh like as a company, how we do things is we have a lot of people who are trained on this, right?
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: From our uh CTO to our we have a legal person, uh, but essentially she is a uh data security and privacy uh person who is now getting to know what is GDPR, what is TCPA.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, in our world, uh we do conversational messaging and uh TCPA is the governing law in the US.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, so having data security, privacy uh is a very good, very important thing.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Plus, what we need to learn is be a little forward-looking in terms of what is coming up so that we can prepare our organizations for that.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_03: For us, essentially, like I would say how you get data, how you get consumer data.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_03: So, uh, are you uh they are giving voluntarily, they are punching on the website, or are you kind of getting it via cookie, or are you purchasing third party, or are you getting through an advertisement click?
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: So, how you capture uh consumer data, how you kind of retain and store data, and how you reuse that data for targeting or retargeting.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, so those are the key key things that the marketers should uh look at, but that's a very technology uh description.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, most marketers lean on uh their IT teams and they lean on their uh providers, uh be it the provider of their marketing platform or their advertising agency to kind of uh tell them and uh to kind of bring them up to speed on how to do these things.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_03: But I think the data is the core.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, even if you have very good uh agencies and you have very good systems, still uh uh everything is configurable, and a marketer should spend some time understanding how the data and privacy is uh uh is happening in their systems.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: Um, if not anything, they should definitely ask these questions to the people, uh the IT team or the service providers that they work with.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, was it not there prior to uh you know, say the last couple of years, privacy has always been on top of uh the agenda, the more and more digital marketing is being used.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is the difference between what's happening now and what's happening in the past?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_03: Uh that's a good question.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_03: Uh uh in my uh experience, uh, I think the use of digital technologies, uh the devices, and how much time we spend on the phone, and how much time we spend on the social media and the digital channels has kind of exploded uh since the pandemic.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think we are almost still spam is at a fairly high level in most countries.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that is where all these privacy laws are now kind of kicking in because uh uh the consumer can't kind of have more of it.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: But traditionally, uh I think there are new laws coming.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we see a new regulation coming, uh one or two major regulations coming every year.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: Uh there are updates to kind of GDPR, there are uh local laws.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_03: Uh now there are database laws.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_03: Now there are going to be AI regulations and there are going to be industry AI plus AI regulations.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_03: So, yes, we are kind of move uh living in a very highly regulated world.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, even the laws which were there uh since uh five, six years, uh like GDPR has been there since 2018, um TCPA came in 2017, uh the Google uh kind of position on cookie less uh uh cookie less world that that came in last two, three months.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: But the cookie less uh option has been in debate for last two years.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_03: So all these things, uh yeah, there is a new recent activity, but the even the earlier laws were there, I would say they were not uh they were not uh really enforced that much.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_03: Now the enforcement is very high.
• 11:04
  unknown: Okay.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: So give me a view of the uh compliance landscape in say key markets like US, Europe, uh how does the compliance landscape on uh marketing changing?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_03: So uh there are industry-specific compliances uh like uh there's a HIPAA compliance related to uh handling health information uh for consumers, that is HIPAA.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_03: Then similarly, there is uh a uh uh regulation called FINRA for handling financial data, which is applicable to all financial institutes and even service providers.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_03: Uh similarly, uh, there are kind of regulations in every industry.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_03: Most of these regulations are data privacy regulations essentially, like how do you handle sensitive data?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_03: So, how do you store it, how do you retrieve it, who you give it to, and so on and so forth.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_03: Uh then there are kind of uh regulations relating to what we can call it each channel.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: So, email has a can-spam act, which is pretty simple, but uh it is it is what it is.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: Uh then uh in advertising, uh mostly advertising is impacted by the cookie uh uh cookie uh settings, right?
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: Advertisers can kind of save cookies, and Google and Facebook, which are uh meta, which are the two big uh advertising conglomerates, and they are basically media companies, so they do a lot to track the consumers and their behavior.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: So there are regulations around that itself.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: There are regulations around cookies, there are regulations around uh saving data, and Facebook has kind of its own uh meta, has its own complications, the way they use data across their apps and all.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: So that will also get more highly regulated, I think, in the future.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and then there are telecom regulations like TCPAs are telecom regulations, there's a Robocalling Act in the US, which got in in June, July of last year.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, recently, uh two months back, there was a regulation around one-to-one messaging, uh, and how that even that needs a consent.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_03: Usually it was taught that I know you, I have your number, so I can message you.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: Even if I purchase a number from a service provider like uh SMS Magic or Google Phone, I can message.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_03: That was generally believed and practiced, but even now that requires uh consent.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: So uh so these are the major uh regulations.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_03: There are telecom regulations, there are specific web cookie relating, advertising relating regulations, and there are industry-specific uh regulations that are usually there.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_03: Then there are regional regulations also, like uh uh Europe by itself, they work as a kind of EU region and they kind of have their own regional regulations which are also there on their data subjects.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, walk me through uh some examples of how brands or marketers overcome these regulations or need to take care of these regulations.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Give me some examples of say if it's an HIPAA Act or uh you know the other compliance landscape that you spoke about for Meta and Google.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how are brands uh overcoming some of these regulations or taking care of their regulations and marketing?
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_03: Sure.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: So um typically uh say for example there is uh uh I'll give you a real example uh which I have seen a few times.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so uh there are you call them uh healthcare companies uh who are say uh doing say hair transplant or skin things, right?
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_03: While these things are usually done, uh they call themselves the beauty industry, right?
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_03: Usually people come there to uh become more good looking, but it has a uh huge healthcare, it can have healthcare implications and it has to be done in a surgical format and all.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: Now, these the all these companies are very aggressive in their marketing.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: So they would run Google Ads, uh, they would run uh Facebook and meta ads across different Facebook properties, like Instagram is a hot channel for them.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_03: In India, uh this uh WhatsApp is a huge channel for them.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: So usually uh these people they would uh collect some information in their ads, right?
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_03: Because they want to uh kind of qualify the leads also, and then they would offer some consultation or some trials, so that's kind of their uh conversion path.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_03: Now they are very sensitive about what information they collect, and uh it should not be uh they should not be collecting any health information per se.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_03: So what we have seen is all these companies uh across their advertising, marketing, and direct uh reach out to prospects, they are sensitive that they don't collect any healthcare information in their data capture, so in their kind of so uh Instagram lead capture, they don't ask for any healthcare information, like uh tell me about your uh kind of health situation, uh the four or five things about your health situation and all.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: This is something I have seen US companies adhering a lot, but in India I don't see that.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: People usually ask, like, do you have any health care?
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um do you have any healthcare ailments?
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_03: Please describe them and kind of those things.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: So US companies are very uh uh sensitive about them.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: Usually they will collect this information over a phone call, but in India I have seen several people ask that information on their website or in their Google forms uh or in the advertising forms.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: So this is one example where kind of they become uh sensitive to what data uh they are going to capture.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: But in general, I think uh every marketer will run a database, and when they run a database, uh they have to flag those fields.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh somewhere they'll capture that field with consent.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: Like on a phone call, it is all kind of uh by default, it is privacy opt-in, right?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: Somebody's calling you, you inquired for a treatment, and then they're asking information which is uh a precursor before you get the treatment.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_03: So then that information gets stored, and they have to flag the fields, uh, encrypt the fields, and kind of uh be careful how they use that information and data.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_03: So that's one example I've seen.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm a marketer, I may not be aware of many of these compliance requirements.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: So how do I prepare myself?
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's uh get at least a few good people who know them, uh, either as a consultant or within your IT team.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: Start spreading awareness, asking the right questions.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, that's what I would say.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: It's not easy for a marketer to get trained in all these uh data security uh technologies and regulations is challenging.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like uh me and uh our core team, we challenge ourselves on these things.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but yeah, like for us, it's the core of it.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_03: Our customers lean on us to at least make their messaging uh data and messaging uh privacy secured.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_03: So we do a lot in securing our customers.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so I think having the right uh service providers and consultants or in-house IT teams is what I would say.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_03: Plus, also develop like modern marketing is all about data.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_03: So uh I would also encourage uh marketers to learn a little bit of database marketing because nowadays even advertising is data, branding is you do it, that may not kind of involve data, but uh anything else, uh learn a little bit of database marketing, which I am sure a lot of modern marketers are doing that.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: So, what's construed as consent?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, so uh that's a very uh intelligent question.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so a consent is something which is recorded, evidenceable.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: Uh as in uh if somebody asks uh how did you collect, when did you collect, uh show me the recording transcript.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: So these are the different words which are used.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and then uh uh consent is also revocable.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: Most laws say that consent should be revocable, it should not be one and done.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: Um and there are some laws which are even stricter that consent uh should be allowed to kind of revoke and action in a day in 24 hours and so on.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so that is meaning of consent, but again, the the there are some broad brushes also where uh consent is sometimes a blanket consent, um, and companies use that like all the banks in India.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: Uh they would kind of and sometimes uh we as consumers they we receive messages from ICI Bank, Kotec Bank, and we don't really know it is about our account, or they are trying to sell me something.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_03: The good thing is the format of the message itself tells us uh what kind of message it is, but otherwise they would they use that as a blanket consent, usually.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_03: Healthcare information is even treated worse, like uh they would send uh reports on WhatsApp and those things happen quite frequently.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: So um, but yeah, I think in India is on the verge of getting a big law and getting more enforcement.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: I I would say it is going to happen in somewhere in the next two years.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, if I were to because if I open a website, uh it just tells me accept all cookies, right?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not so sure uh what I'm clicking as a consumer, okay, and uh therefore uh and there's nothing called what I call as a preference center, right?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: I read some case studies around preference center where I can go and change my preference in the way I want the communication in the way I want when I need to be communicated, and not many companies have something called a customer.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Preference center, which is a part of a consent management system.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_01: So, can you talk to me about what is a preference center and uh how can you help companies set up a preference center as a foundation for uh consent management system which leads to uh say a privacy first engagement, right?
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: So I think these are all uh I would say interdependent uh modules that a marketer should have.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_01: So if you can walk me through it, that'll be great.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_03: Fantastic.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: Customer, so like you said, websites have a accept cookie or deny, these two options, but some websites also have a advanced uh preferences, advanced cookie settings, and there they will give you four options and you can click which one you want.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but that is far and few.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: So there are what I see across companies is they are maintaining preferences uh at two or three places.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_03: So they would maintain preferences for website on a web server, they would maintain uh preferences for direct uh messaging channels uh like email, SMS, WhatsApp, in a separate database, usually their marketing platform or CRM.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and then there are other uh preferences that they would uh maintain at other places.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_03: So uh we at SMS Magic help them manage uh preferences for the direct messaging channels, which is SMS, email, WhatsApp, Instagram, uh Instagram, I mean DM, uh Facebook Messenger DM.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so for us it is a very uh high transactional database which we maintain and run where uh if they get a call at their contact center, they can come give uh give permission to their admin to create a consent or to revoke a consent.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and then uh it has to have contributions.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_03: The preference center needs to have contributions from multiple uh sources and channels, and it needs to be uh available for the business to use when and where they want.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_03: Uh now, traditionally, also there have been marketing platforms which do a better job at preference center, and then there are platforms that just have a very uh monolithic uh preference uh where they would give preference yes or no.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_03: Some would have preference by channel, uh, some would have preference by day and time, some would have preference by uh topic of the conversation or what kind of content they want to receive.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_03: Um for example, somebody doesn't want to receive marketing communication but want to receive uh uh account-based information.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_03: So, all these preferences are possible uh to be configured, and I think all these things will get more mature.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: And uh so I'll give you one example of a large uh they are I think the ninth largest uh home uh real estate company in the US, and they took a lot of time, almost eight, nine months, to build a preference center on top of our application.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_03: Now they were basically, we were kind of giving them a preference center for messaging and WhatsApp, uh, WhatsApp for their Latin American uh customers, but they also wanted to merge it with the email, uh their email preference center.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_03: So they created a database uh which will uh look up and uh for against each consumer, they would have kind of what is the email preference and what is the messaging preference, and then have it flow both ways, uh, flow it to their email uh software and flow it to into our database.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_03: So they spend a lot of time and they became we were very surprised uh initially that why they're spending so much time at it.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh they spent six months, eight months, and they did it, they became successful, they are one of the uh one of the very uh marketing friendly, but yeah, very good branded companies in the in the US.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_03: So people do that.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_03: Uh even in the US, we didn't find a lot of companies spend a lot of time at it, but of late we have seen like there are no compromises, even smaller uh players are sensitive to privacy and uh all of that.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_01: So, uh, as a consumer, you and me really do not know anything about preference or consent, right?
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: Because it's very, very technical.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: So if you give me a page where you say, When do you want me to receive communication?
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's really uh you know to me it looks too rational.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_01: It almost is like uh a database-led decision that you want me to take.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_01: There are times when I probably need uh a channel to communicate to me at some point in time.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_01: There are times when I don't want that communication.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_01: So are there now AI-based intuitive ways of actually building preferences and therefore brands and marketers then adapting to my behavior and changing it because technically uh I would see this to be the biggest challenge for marketers.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_03: Definitely, uh Swami, we are as a company, we are definitely working in this area.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_03: So we have uh we are building a platform called Conversive AI, which basically uh will kind of gather uh help orchestrate uh multiple channels.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_03: So, usually in our industry, we have seen people use calling and messaging, and then there are a different set of uh industries like the universities, they would never call, students never call, they would just message, message, and maybe social.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_03: That is what these people would do.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas a healthcare company would have a lot of calls and they would do emails for reports, uh, and they would use some uh messaging and WhatsApp for kind of uh day-to-day communication.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: So, uh what we are working on is orchestrating these channels.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, so okay, uh now these companies would obviously use different channel mix for their prospecting and marketing uh and initial sales engagement, but once the customer consumer is signed up for the program, then they would use a little bit of a different channel mix and they would have different people who are responsible.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_03: And these companies are always looking to maintain a good efficiency.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: So, what we are doing is we are creating that conversive AI platform to orchestrate uh the channels and tell the business that okay, calling is expensive, so maybe you can replace calling with messaging because messaging agents are more effective.
• 28:53
  SPEAKER_03: You can chat with uh five to six people simultaneously, whereas on a phone call you are with uh one person only.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: So though those technologies are coming in uh where AI will determine the channel mix, where AI will determine uh so one thing which AI will definitely do, and I think that is kind of getting into the mainstream now, is we are uh all calls are getting recorded, all um web channels, uh web meetings are getting recorded, phone calls are getting recorded, messaging is obviously a recorded form only.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: So AI is helping uh transcribe these calls uh and finding out the sentiment uh and the intent.
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_03: So if tomorrow there's a phone call and somebody says, Don't call me again, so that will get captured, and AI will very well, most AI and LLMs will identify that as a negative sentiment.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: So that will that is starting to get captured, and that is getting to start writing back into the database.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: So consumers will get advantageous because they whatever they say, if it is not actionable directly, but it is showing up in some reports, and the business can action them.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_03: So that those things are already happening, transcribing sentiment analysis.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_03: Now the businesses can further act on that and run their database actions uh based on that.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, strong AI driven uh AI-driven databases and orchestration is something that we are working on.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_03: There are other companies also that we see, and there are large platforms like Salesforce uh and even uh players like Microsoft who would uh who are going into uh channel orchestration and uh they are going into understanding what is happening on the call.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_03: So that way, like I think it'll uh like things are going to change for the consumer.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_03: I think for the good, uh it'll not be like a very uh uh convoluted um uh choice that they have to make.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_01: So if I were a marketer listening to this conversation and uh you're talking about orchestration uh in terms of privacy, in terms of consent.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh can you give me an example of how you think is the best practice to do this?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_01: So just give me an example of what you've done.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_01: You I know some of the data that you'll be doing on your clients will be confidential, but give me a broad brushstroke and a blueprint on how to approach this.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_03: Um so some of the examples I can give are more on the customer servicing side.
• 31:46
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, sure.
• 31:47
  SPEAKER_03: So, uh, and that is a very hot area, Swami, right now, because it is generally believed, and I think it is true to some extent also that AI can replace agents.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_03: So that's a political hot potato, also, because businesses don't want to talk about it openly, uh, because they want to maintain a good workforce, and culture is very important for any good company.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_03: So, what is generally believed is uh at least if you can't take out the people, uh then reduce their workload, make them more efficient with the use of AI technologies, which is kind of right now.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_03: So, some examples I have seen is like when uh traditionally it has been all calling, right?
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh companies grow and to grow, and with their growth, the their contact center also grows.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_03: And usually they look at it as a pride that okay, we were 50 people, now we are 100 people.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, I have seen companies where contact center is the major part of their workforce, um, and they typically position these some people as okay, they are the lead and custom lead and prospecting uh team, and these are the customer service teams.
• 32:59
  SPEAKER_03: So that's how they would divide these teams.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_03: So, where I've seen uh a practical application of channel orchestration is where we have kind of implemented and suggested our customers is sometimes they receive calls and uh they have to do a lot of work on call relating to the account uh-based information or explaining what to do to the consumer.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_03: Now, because they are assigned registered customer, paying customers, they have to honor that.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of that can be automated over a uh messaging um interface.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so these are typical healthcare companies, they want to know the next treatment steps and medicines and uh kind of when is my next date and so on.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_03: So they call at the contact center and we advise them to run uh account-based uh awareness programs based on postcall.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_03: So somebody calls, you say you will receive all that information, I'll be watching that.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: And if you still need to uh talk to me, you can talk to me on messaging.
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: So I kind of advise, put the phone down, and then I put them on an uh agent which is going to tell, okay, ask me what are the questions on on the messaging.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I have I need to know my next state for the treatment, I need to know my medicine.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_03: So all that information can be given by the agent and uh by the AI agent, and that can be made visible to the assistant, uh to the real agent that okay, next time when the person calls, that this is what has happened.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_03: This is one case, and I'll give you another case where uh like we are used to airlines, like airlines are important and travel is increasing.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_03: Uh all the US airlines they don't do rescheduling on phone call.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_03: I know Air India still does that, but most US airlines don't do rescheduling on call.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: So if you call uh and press that I want to reschedule, they are going to say, We have sent you a message and do that.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_03: So message will have a link and on their portal, you have to do the rescheduling.
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: So people are kind of orchestrating channels like this.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: So calling and messaging use cases we have seen a lot.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, and I think it will also happen from kind of web chat and AI agents to messaging.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, some of that will be because of data security reasons also.
• 35:18
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• 35:25
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• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: And now back to the show.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Do you see this being even used for uh inbound leads, uh CRM, uh then uh say uh branding messages?
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, because if you tell me uh that uh you have to have a consent to even talk to me, uh then the real challenge is I can't even market to you as a brand.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_01: So therefore, then how do I overcome that given this whole consent era, privacy era, uh, and I'm actually uh I would call it uh you know, I'm out of marketing messaging, right?
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_01: So therefore, if I want to be uh somebody who's having to think outside the box of consent, uh how do I prepare myself to build this?
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because one is on the customer service area, one is really on the uh, you know, I would call it the customer experience area.
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_01: But imagine I'm a brand and uh I'm actually uh not allowing you to even send me messages, you know.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: It could be web messages, it could be uh you know the Google ads that you are doing, it could be uh the WhatsApp messages that happen.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: So now I need to reach out to you.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: So how do I therefore build my marketing orchestration module in an era of consent?
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_03: Uh sure, that's a good uh question.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: So there are different hacks uh that people use.
• 37:20
  SPEAKER_03: So usually the guiding uh principle or thought is that uh the consumer will visit you on some channel, uh, their website, uh their social page, or sometimes they will message you on WhatsApp.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so when the consumer is kind of visiting you, capture the consent on that.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_03: So usually they will give the consent when they need to do some action, like they want some information, or they want uh to log in or they want to uh uh talk to somebody.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_03: So when they ask for that, then uh your you should have a digital infrastructure to kind of capture the consent and record it uh in the right format.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: How do I do that?
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_03: So using uh web forms have kind of uh the right check boxes and information with web forms.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_03: If somebody is coming on a chat, then uh on the chat also you can say that uh uh we are going to transfer you to an agent, please give your phone number and you consent to receive messages and calls from us.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_03: So you can write that in a chat.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and if you are somebody is calling you at your contact center, then also you can say, uh, do you agree?
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, we are going to contact you based for your inquiry.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_03: Are you okay with receiving communication from us?
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_03: And based on that, uh, if if it is on a non-recorded channel like a voice call, uh, then you can send a confirmation email also or a message that uh uh thank you for calling in and we are going to call you and we have received your consent for uh so and so.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_03: So capture the consent whenever the visitor is uh visiting you.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_03: It can also be a location or a retail shop or your service center where people walk in.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_03: And when people walk in, then okay, when you take that information, uh get them to sign a form, um, which is very common practice in the US.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_03: You sign a form, yes, uh, and you you have your phone number, email, and you put in the right terms and conditions uh there.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so capturing consent at the right time uh and making your team aware uh that okay, they have to say these things is uh a very common practice.
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, what you are saying is every time there's an interaction, you need to have a digital infrastructure that captures the consent, and you have to uh have that consent in a digital infrastructure, and it must be available whenever that channel is enabled for that uh customer when marketing messages or uh you know conversations happen with the customer.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_01: So that's the level of digital infrastructure and consent management systems brands have to build.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what you are saying?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, and kind of activate your channels.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_03: There are some channels which are low friction channels.
• 40:17
  SPEAKER_03: For example, uh chat, uh, anonymous chat is a fairly low-friction channel.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, in some markets, depending on your audience and demographics, even social is a low-friction channel.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_03: Although with social you capture everything, but some uh students, some young people, they are kind of high on social and they would like to engage with brands on social.
• 40:41
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so these understand the low-friction channels among your audience and be very active there, capture the consents there by kind of just uh typing in what you're going to do and confirming that.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so give those channels uh which also sometimes mean deploying people and those AI technologies behind that, that is required in today's world.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_01: How is the uh trajectory of uh consumer or customer engagement changing today?
• 41:15
  SPEAKER_01: One is really at the acquisition side we spoke about a lot.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh in the con in the customer engagement side, how is that trajectory changing?
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_01: Say, for example, uh say uh from search-based interactions to answer-based interactions, a lot of changes are happening.
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_01: Can you uh walk me through some of the trajectory where how consumer engagement is moving?
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, um we so some people are very bullish on kind of things like Siri and uh uh Chat GPT uh becoming the de facto knowledge interface uh for consumers.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but I the reports say not more than five to ten percent consumers are using that that way, that okay, anything I need, I go to Deep Seek or Chat GPT.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_03: So only five to ten percent consumers are doing that, but still it is a it is uh becoming a lead generation channel.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_03: So if we many people will go to uh chat GPT and ask uh what is the best uh treatment for a skin uh uh skin implant or what is the best treatment for a dental thing.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_03: So people have started doing that, it has become a lead generation channel, but I think it is going to draw a bigger change among the traditional uh search uh based uh channels like Google.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: Even Google has kind of uh it first gives you an AI and then it gives you those links, so that it changes that behavior based on how you ask.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_03: Uh if you do a typical keyword, it will give you a list of links.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_03: If you ask it as a question, then it will give you the uh the AI, their uh their own technology to kind of do the AI-based uh result.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_03: But I think the information world is definitely shrinking, uh, and information is available easily to everybody, uh, which also means that uh companies have to be very good at their messaging and branding, very good at it.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, it is not kind of every uh information source is connecting because these guys are the aggregators of information, Google now chat GPT, um and kind of social is a little different.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and I think it is it has it needs to be there, otherwise, these people will just manipulate everything.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_03: At least it's social, uh, it is more kind of people centric and people drive it uh because they are real interactions.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_03: And post and so on.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_03: So I think brands have to manage their messaging in the right across the right channels.
• 44:09
  SPEAKER_03: And PR and social is going to be more important than branding.
• 44:14
  SPEAKER_03: Because you have to manage your messaging.
• 44:16
  SPEAKER_03: What you say on social may become more important than what you say on website, depending on the audience.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, that's how I think we have to change, adapt to the consumer preference.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_01: So let's look at digital marketing, say maybe a decade or two.
• 44:40
  SPEAKER_01: When it started, you had this whole uh Google Ads where you search and then there are some Google ads that come in and then you click and then you go there, and then there are these uh you know ad exchange that is there, the Google uh 360 or whatever.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_01: That's really how digital marketing has grown, right?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, with the engagement changing to a Gemini or say uh uh OpenAI or a Deep Seek or whatever that you call, uh, how will my engagement change then?
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh you know I didn't I didn't I don't see open AI as a league gen channel, right?
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_01: So how did you say in fact you used the word open AI being a league gen channel?
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so how will it become a league gen channel if I was a marketer?
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um so marketers right now can't do much to influence how uh how uh uh these uh LLMs answer uh queries relating to their services or their topics.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_01: Correct.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_03: But I um yeah, but I guess um, and I think some of them have said that they will open uh two advertisers and people uh maybe advertising style, maybe listing or whatever, I don't know.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but they will allow advertisers to kind of uh uh put them as kind of a sponsored uh information source in the reply.
• 46:05
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so that may happen.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh if you ask OpenAI even today, show me the answer this question, show me the kind of best clinics for a child pediatric clinics in my area and give me the links where you source.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_03: So then they will give you the links also.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_03: But uh, I think um uh people uh I I personally feel people are not going to kind of use web the way I have used till now.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_03: I would go into most of the first page links and see if I'm really getting the right uh nursing for my kid.
• 46:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I'll validate the more important that information, the more validation I would do and look at three, four sources, triangulate them.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_03: Like that's the old school, right?
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_03: I I'm not sure if people are going to do that going forward.
• 46:53
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so how do you how do you envisage it'll happen in your if you were to uh if you were to be a little more futuristic, how do you think it'll happen?
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_03: I think people will use more social um to find uh uh clinics near them, um and uh people will also enquire in their uh WhatsApp groups and all in their social channels, like that area is definitely increasing.
• 47:29
  SPEAKER_03: Like uh for example, uh ladies in my family they would just go to Pula, uh, which is uh Pune Lady Pune ladies group on Facebook and WhatsApp.
• 47:40
  SPEAKER_03: So anything they do, they need Pula.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, Pula has said this, so that's the ultimate uh testament to anything.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_03: So I think social reviews and social communities will become more powerful, especially in Indian context and also in a large section of the uh US population.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_03: That's my personal uh experience.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so my behavior where I'll go to web and ten things, uh uh and uh that will definitely change, and people will do more social and kind of uh also they will.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_03: I think this asking LLM will be there.
• 48:16
  SPEAKER_03: Uh they'll ask LLMs and uh go about this.
• 48:20
  SPEAKER_03: So I think it is the same thing.
• 48:22
  SPEAKER_03: Like I would uh call five people, uh at least call three parents and kind of ask them what they would do.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_03: But my inquiry was a phone call.
• 48:31
  SPEAKER_03: Uh nowadays they are asking on WhatsApp groups and all.
• 48:35
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so I think that is going to change definitely.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_03: People don't like phone calls somehow.
• 48:40
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the young people don't like to call, uh, which I don't know if it is going to change or not, but definitely that uh call pickup rate and that tendency to call is definitely going down in the younger generations.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_01: How is uh conversational AI going to change customer engagement?
• 49:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think uh already we are getting used to that uh full page uh full page chat uh interface uh which is pioneered by open AI.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_03: That full-page chat interface with a left uh uh uh for the history, then it'll show you ask questions, some drop down within the thing.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_03: So that is popularly called as a conversational AI interface.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_03: Um that is going to dominate uh I think a lot of websites and a lot of uh things, uh but yeah, uh what uh web behavior we are used to, like a typical shopping uh interface or a typical uh uh booking interface, that is not going to go.
• 49:58
  SPEAKER_03: But then when it again comes to kind of customer engagement, then people would use these conversational interfaces to ask anything.
• 50:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so wherever there is unstructured engagement, so engagement and customer experience is usually unstructured, that will go to conversation AI, but yeah, the established web interfaces for booking, search, even email, uh, that are kind of hard to kind of change.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think that is going to change.
• 50:29
  SPEAKER_01: So uh imagine if I were say FMCG brand, or imagine if I were a healthcare brand.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if I want to get into a conversational AI kind of engagement, uh would I have my data and then build a wrapper around an open AI or a cloud or uh deep seek kind of a thing.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: So which means that I'm asking about beauty, right?
• 50:58
  SPEAKER_01: So when I'm asking about beauty, I have certain data that I have collected uh from my website, from the search, from various things that I have, which is really my LLM, okay.
• 51:10
  SPEAKER_01: And uh then I'm actually having the foundational LLM sitting, okay.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: So this LLM will talk to the foundational LLM, and therefore the conversational AI will then start to change the way uh you know when I go to a unilever website, the engagement will be different.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_01: When I go to a PNG website, it will be different.
• 51:30
  SPEAKER_01: And is that the way conversational AI is going to change engagement?
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_03: 100%.
• 51:35
  SPEAKER_03: I think that is uh very likely to happen, and that will change not just on the website but on the social uh uh DM as well.
• 51:45
  SPEAKER_03: Uh so I think brands have to be very careful about uh where their knowledge base is uh getting used.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_03: So there are settings.
• 51:57
  SPEAKER_03: If you carefully see uh chat GPT settings, there are four settings there which uh talk about storing uh personal information, uh using your information for training, and there are a couple of more settings.
• 52:13
  SPEAKER_03: So a brand has to be careful how they configure their data used with the LLMs.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_03: Umce they kind of get comfortable with okay, this and with the right consultant, uh, they know how their knowledge base is used with LLMs and so on.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, then I think they can be sure.
• 52:33
  SPEAKER_03: But more important is to understand that even their knowledge base is different than their database.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_03: So, knowledge base is still nobody's going to sue them for their knowledge base, like it is their kind of IPR, of course, they have to protect it and build it, but their data, which is their customer data, is not exactly their property, right?
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_03: It is somebody else's data, and it is prone to all privacy regulations which we have spoken earlier.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_03: So they have to maintain that separately.
• 52:59
  SPEAKER_03: Definitely don't share any uh PII data with any LLMs, that will be like a disaster.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_03: Uh and then uh the uh sometimes that distinction is not possible.
• 53:12
  SPEAKER_03: Some customers say that oh, we can't differentiate, uh, we can't distinguish.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_03: So there the option of uh private hosting is becoming now possible, which was not possible six months before, especially after DeepSeek, uh, because it's an efficient model, and uh in many companies are hosting DeepSeq in India, and uh I think models will be available for private hosting.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_03: If it is private hosting, then it doesn't matter.
• 53:39
  SPEAKER_03: You can uh but yeah, usually that guardrail of kind of what data and knowledge base you are sharing is usually good.
• 53:48
  SPEAKER_03: A lot of providers like us uh or people who are building AI applications, they usually say to their customers that we don't use your data to train the LLMs.
• 53:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh we would store our data, but within your configuration settings at our end, we'll never share your personal data, which means they are controlling those four configurations.
• 54:10
  SPEAKER_03: So, which LLM you use, how you host your knowledge base, plus how you host your data.
• 54:15
  SPEAKER_03: So, companies need to work that um out.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_03: Even before Deep Seek came, uh uh I got to know from some AI-based service uh companies that uh uh large companies in India they were preferring to privately host Lama, the meta model.
• 54:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, so they were looking to privately host that, and they were saying no, no, no, uh, it is not costly because they don't need results in uh real time and all that.
• 54:46
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, these are the options.
• 54:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and uh this is a great question that how do they kind of tune their data and their uh knowledge with the uh with the uh AI?
• 54:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so therefore, almost the way I'm thinking, and uh correct me if I'm wrong, Nitin.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_01: Say Swami is having a relationship with an insurance company, right?
• 55:08
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so Swami is an entity, okay.
• 55:11
  SPEAKER_01: Swami calls the call center.
• 55:14
  SPEAKER_01: So therefore, Swami has a lot of interactions with the call center, which is again unstructured data.
• 55:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Swami complains, therefore, there is email that is coming in, okay.
• 55:25
  SPEAKER_01: And Swami is also uh being sent WhatsApp messages, and he is also talking to the bots or whatever, and that data is coming in.
• 55:34
  SPEAKER_01: So the way you then have to create your privacy infrastructure for Swami uh to build an LLM for Swami in an agentic world, okay, where I will probably have an uh insurance agent for me looking at my data to create engagement for me with the foundational LLM is really the future and therefore the enterprise architecture and therefore moving to a customer architecture for engagement.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_01: Is that the way AI is going to move?
• 56:07
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 56:08
  SPEAKER_03: So there'll be a preference center that that uh company will maintain with your data, uh, and it should not uh uh that customer uh architecture, that customer preference center where your record is there should never be uh passed on to a LLM, which means your name, your number uh has to be uh de-identified uh before being used.
• 56:34
  SPEAKER_03: Uh now there are different models which will feed off basically your customer segment.
• 56:40
  SPEAKER_03: So LLM still needs to know if you are a regular customer or you are an initial customer, you are a high-income buyer, you are looking for a big ticket uh program.
• 56:50
  SPEAKER_03: So, in that case, uh you have to de-anonymize that and uh put you in a typical marketing like segment, uh, and that segment is passed.
• 57:00
  SPEAKER_03: So that's how it is going to run.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_03: So they these databases using with LLMs, all marketers have to kind of uh literally master that, yeah.
• 57:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 57:15
  SPEAKER_01: So therefore, the when I go back to LLMs, uh clearly the LLMs uh are generic, right?
• 57:22
  SPEAKER_01: So which means that uh uh my biggest fear is my data will go to a central pool and it will get used by the open AIs of the world and the deep sex in the world, and so therefore, more and more this privacy first philosophy that we started our conversation with becomes important.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_01: So the architecture of how you have the PIA data, uh how you uh denormalize or you know uh uh create identifiers which cannot be uh identified in a central pool, yet you're going to build an AI conversational agent to build an engagement with me, is the way the the architecture needs to be built.
• 58:01
  SPEAKER_01: So the way architectures in IT companies will have to be built will be very different from the current architecture that are there, right?
• 58:09
  SPEAKER_01: Does it uh uh that's something that I think some of your uh articles were talking about.
• 58:14
  SPEAKER_01: So is that the way it's going to move?
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_03: So um great uh inference, uh Swami.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_03: Uh in in the AI world, this is called as guardrails.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_03: So so guardrails are built by application providers like us, and guardrails are also built by uh agentic platforms uh like uh Salesforce and Microsoft.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_03: So they call it Guardrail so that you are secure and you don't inadvertently share uh pri uh any uh consumer data uh with the LLMs.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_03: So, but yeah, all these platforms are four months old.
• 58:52
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 58:53
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, how it really pans out is something uh yet to be seen.
• 58:59
  SPEAKER_03: Uh the the the kind of challenge uh right now is the cost.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_03: Um so but the cost is coming down so dramatically.
• 59:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and there are kind of these are things even our uh uh head of states uh and kind of presidents and prime ministers, they are talking about AI.
• 59:17
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, the cost is I believe the cost has now come out to a reasonable level where we can literally control these parameters and use it in a risk-free way.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, that architecture and those things have to be built, absolutely.
• 59:32
  SPEAKER_03: And even I would say that uh why would a brand build that architecture?
• 59:37
  SPEAKER_03: They need to purchase it from a platform.
• 59:40
  SPEAKER_03: Building that will be like building a very sophisticated database, right?
• 59:44
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, unless they are a tech company, then they can build it, but yeah, uh that can also be a mistake.
• 59:50
  SPEAKER_03: You build something custom and it doesn't scale uh and comes and bites you back.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so so therefore, there are going to be new cloud-based AI infrastructure that could that could also happen.
• 1:00:02
  SPEAKER_01: So the AI-driven data models are going to emerge that will drive AI conversations and therefore customer engagement.
• 1:00:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably the way it's going to move, right?
• 1:00:13
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely, yes, yes.
• 1:00:14
  SPEAKER_03: There's going to be a lot of AI infrastructure.
• 1:00:17
  SPEAKER_03: There'll be AI infrastructure for uh for AI apps like us.
• 1:00:23
  SPEAKER_03: There'll be AI infrastructure for brands, and there'll be agentic platforms like Microsoft and uh Salesforce and Planteer, and maybe who knows, Indian companies are also.
• 1:00:36
  SPEAKER_03: I think all these large companies are going to launch their AI platforms soon, I feel in India.
• 1:00:44
  SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
• 1:00:48
  SPEAKER_01: So uh so I'm gonna end this uh conversation with a couple of uh rapid fire questions, I think.
• 1:00:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so the first question is if I were a marketer, looking at how a privacy-first world is going to hit me, what are the skills I need to prepare myself with?
• 1:01:14
  SPEAKER_03: Um so in uh direct marketing, database marketing, um we are uh in a digital world, uh social, uh these are I think I would say conversational uh AI as well.
• 1:01:33
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:01:37
  SPEAKER_01: Uh if I'm a technologist uh working with uh say designers, uh what really are the skills that I need to build for myself to help build these kind of marketing assets?
• 1:01:54
  SPEAKER_03: Great.
• 1:01:55
  SPEAKER_03: Um getting used to the AI infrastructure and platforms uh uh very closely uh understand uh the uh conversational AI interfaces um and uh uh watch out for the regulations uh on how they are going to impact uh everything.
• 1:02:18
  SPEAKER_03: Uh because some some of these regulations they are kind of disrupting and they do happen once in a year, in once in a while.
• 1:02:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:02:31
  SPEAKER_01: If I am an 18-year-old or a 22-year-old uh in a technology school, uh what is it that I should learn to prepare myself for the marketing technology world over the next decade?
• 1:02:48
  SPEAKER_03: That's a tough one.
• 1:02:50
  SPEAKER_03: I would say um so I I see a lot of people learning uh content creation and kind of how to go deep into content production.
• 1:03:00
  SPEAKER_03: So that's a new area which a lot of people have kind of mastered.
• 1:03:04
  SPEAKER_03: People are starting their own channels, even they are starting their channels on uh reels, they're starting producing reels on their own Instagram channel, reels and stories on um YouTube.
• 1:03:16
  SPEAKER_03: So content production is definitely one, but also uh uh in terms of marketing, look at the marketing platforms, uh uh the conversational AI platforms uh and the digital marketing platforms, which are growing like anything, although they are the same for the last five years.
• 1:03:36
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, understanding digital technology landscape is going to be a lot more important, so there will be a need for a lot of digital marketers, and there will be a lead for a the content production is already changing and it will kind of mature and change quite a bit, uh, just like you are doing this podcast.
• 1:03:56
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I'm sure you would have done other things uh in your as a marketer earlier.
• 1:04:02
  SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, get getting used to that uh new content production methodology and the new digital uh technologies and infrastructure.
• 1:04:10
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 1:04:15
  SPEAKER_01: What is one thing that uh a piece of advice that you were given when you started your career that you really value even today?
• 1:04:27
  SPEAKER_03: Um it may sound a little uh revolutionary.
• 1:04:31
  SPEAKER_03: So that was a professor of marketing at uh NM Nurse Modji Mumbai, uh, and uh he had a full-blown lecture on death of branding, uh, which like obviously he was a little um theatrical, very good speaker.
• 1:04:50
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, but the essential messaging was that uh digital technologies are going to be so direct to the end consumer that branding the way it was in 2000s will not uh stay as is, uh, where you are just kind of producing nice ads and kind of you are painting the city with billboards and so on.
• 1:05:12
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that is true.
• 1:05:14
  SPEAKER_03: Uh I I literally like that, and that's where I charge started my journey in customer experience, which is broadly about direct customer engagement, be it at any stage uh uh of that uh life cycle.
• 1:05:28
  SPEAKER_03: So I learned a lot from that.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_03: I think branding, there's a new way of branding.
• 1:05:32
  SPEAKER_03: I won't say there's a death of branding, but uh there is a new way to brand.
• 1:05:36
  SPEAKER_03: PR is way more important, and one news can spoil any brand, be it the biggest of all brands, and news can go viral and it can cause a lot of bad things, also.
• 1:05:48
  SPEAKER_03: So managing PR is something which is very important, but yeah, uh direct uh customer experience and social is uh something that uh that really helped me that insight, and he was a mentor to me also in my earlier entrepreneurial journey.
• 1:06:04
  SPEAKER_03: Uh, so that helped me a lot.
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_01: Great, thanks a lot, Natan, for your time.
• 1:06:09
  SPEAKER_01: It was a conversation that made me think.
• 1:06:13
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, it started giving me ideas around how conversational AI is going to change the world of marketing.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of thoughts that came in, which was uh new and uh you triggered a lot of ideas as I prepared for this conversation.
• 1:06:29
  SPEAKER_01: So thanks for your time and it was great having you in our podcast.
• 1:06:33
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you, Swami.
• 1:06:34
  SPEAKER_03: I really enjoyed it.
• 1:06:35
  SPEAKER_03: I think uh you brought in a marketers' perspective uh uh upfront into how they can kind of not only drive this but also thrive.
• 1:06:45
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it is the day and age of marketeers, digital marketers.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_03: So yeah, thank you for all the insightful questions and happy to share whatever little I give.
• 1:06:56
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening to this episode.
• 1:06:59
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