AI Appreciation Day: Experts unpack key trends impacting business today
In this article, we speak to key experts from a diverse range of business, technology, innovation, marketing, data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) backgrounds about some of the emerging trends, challenges and opportunities AI opens for businesses now, and in the future.
AI turning around customer data fragmentation to accelerate business growth
Customer data issues like fragmentation, poor quality and identity confusion have really hindered business and marketing performance over the years. According to Billy Loizou, APAC Area Vice President at Amperity, AI is now changing the equation by making sense of the data that already exists and unifying it accurately.
“One of its biggest impacts we see lies in identity resolution. Instead of relying on rigid rules, AI can detect patterns across billions of records to unify customer profiles with far greater speed and accuracy. It reduces manual effort while improving precision,” he explains.
“AI also improves data quality by learning from the data itself, flagging inconsistencies, filling gaps and adapting to behavioral changes. This leads to more trustworthy, actionable datasets over time.”
Amperity recently launched its Identity Resolution Agent and Chuck Data, two AI-powered innovations designed to help enterprises unify customer records at scale and accelerate time-to-insight.
The Identity Resolution Agent uses machine learning to dynamically match and merge fragmented customer data, while Chuck Data is an AI assistant that lives in the terminal and enables data engineers to build customer tables, resolve identities and tag PII using natural language prompts – without manual coding or orchestration.
“Where data lives in disconnected systems, AI acts as a bridge, linking touchpoints across channels that traditional systems couldn’t connect. It enables real-time personalisation by matching signals in the moment, not days later,” Billy adds.
Importantly, AI reduces the operational drag of data work. Teams can shift their focus from stitching data together to actually using it – turning a seemingly static infrastructure into a real-time strategic asset.”
Unlocking deeper customer insights and reporting with gen AI
Another great example of gen AI deepening the impact of customer data insights and discovery for business is the latest innovations from Nexxen, a global, flexible advertising technology platform with deep expertise in data and advanced TV.
They recently announced their newest advancement, nexAI: the introduction of generative AI to the Nexxen Data Platform, including a UI assistant within its proprietary insights tool Nexxen Discovery. With this advancement, nexAI enables clients to quickly turn complex consumer data into clear, actionable audience profiles and campaign planning for seamless activation.
The integration of generative AI natively into Discovery allows users to generate polished, compelling audience reports — complete with brand share of voice, sentiment analysis, audience interests and strategic recommendations — based on just a few inputs.
“The Nexxen Data Platform has always been powered by advanced machine learning to help our clients navigate the fragmented media landscape. With the introduction of generative AI and the nexAI Discovery assistant, we’re taking that foundation to the next level — turning complex datasets into clear, strategic guidance in an instant,” said Karim Rayes, Chief Product Officer, Nexxen. “This is about removing friction from the entire workflow, enabling advertisers and agencies to move from insights to activation faster, smarter and with greater confidence.”
“Our clients are continuing to lean into data and technology to navigate the fragmented media landscape, and nexAI meets this evolving need,” said Karim Rayes, Chief Product Officer, Nexxen. “By integrating AI across our unified platform – and leveraging our existing data to inform these capabilities – we’re not just adding features; we’re fundamentally transforming the way campaigns are run and inventory is monetised.”
Future proofing personalised customer experiences with AI
Recent research from The Australian Loyalty Association (ALA) highlights the growing tension between personalisation expectations and customer comfort with data use:
- 46% of members expect brands to know their preferences—suggesting a gap between expectation and delivery.
- 58% are happy to share their data in exchange for more relevant offers.
- 53% remain concerned about the volume of data loyalty programs hold on them.
- 75% prefer communication via email, with only 35% open to texts—and just 68% wanting SMS used for urgent updates only.
ALA Founder and Director Sarah Richardson says AI is undoubtedly a powerful agent of change in the loyalty ecosystem as it evolves to accelerate processes and customer experience outcomes, strengthen personalisation and shape wider strategic decision-making.
“As AI tools become more sophisticated, the pressure is on loyalty leaders to stay informed about technology advancements to maintain their competitive edge. The 2025 event is set to provide loyalty professionals with practical guidance and fresh thinking during a pivotal moment for the industry, to better adapt to shifting consumer behaviours and cultivate lasting customer loyalty.”
So topical is the issue, that the ALA recently announced the future of retail AI, personalisation and customer loyalty will be the major topics of industry discussion and debate at its the upcoming 2025 Asia Pacific Loyalty Conference from 29–31 July 2025 at QT Resort, Gold Coast.
Key themes will focus on disruption and innovation at every stage of the loyalty journey—from building a customer data strategy to designing seamless, value-led member experiences. Sessions will look at predictive analytics, machine learning, and how brands can harness new technologies while staying aligned to customer trust.
Robert Pope, General Manager of Customer from Myer will also feature on the program, sharing how brands can adapt and relaunch their loyalty strategies in the age of AI.
“The AI era is reshaping customer experience and member loyalty,” Pope says. New AI technologies and practical strategies can be applied to organisations and loyalty programs, to create a more efficient and personalised member experience.”
Helping business leaders step off the ‘technical treadmill’ with AI assistants
According to Sangeeta Mudnal, Chief Technology Officer of pioneering GenAI platform Glu, AI-powered assistants from Google, Meta, and Perplexity are redefining how consumers engage with brands, creating an entirely new canvas for creative expression. These developments aren’t merely technical innovations but rather a fundamental reimagining of the creative producer’s role.
In fact, Microsoft reports that its AI assistant Copilot has accelerated consumer purchase journeys by approximately 30%, while partnerships like OpenAI and Shopify’s integration of purchasing within ChatGPT conversations hint at commerce experiences embedded directly in conversational flows.
“As AI assistants increasingly mediate the relationship between brands and consumers, we’re witnessing a profound shift in how creative work is conceptualised, produced, optimised, and delivered,” Mudnal says. With the rapid rise of these industry trends platforms like Glu.ai are now showcasing a deep commitment to customer-centric innovation, while being dedicated to helping e-commerce merchants seamlessly adapt and thrive in this new era of AI-facilitated ecommerce.
As an example, Glu,ai’s AI-powered platforms helps organise digital assets with automatic tagging, generate tailored content suggestions, and automates time-consuming tasks like bulk cropping and resizing, creating the operational efficiency you need to experiment with emerging AI channels.
“Starting with a solution like Glu.au means building the creative muscles and operational frameworks quickly and at scale. While other creative producers are still struggling with platform-specific formatting and technical SEO optimisation, you’ll be crafting distinctive brand voices that flourish in conversation,” Mudnal explains.
Managing AI transformation and governance in asset-centric industries
AI presents significant opportunities for many organisations, but asset-centric industries in particular, where management and data collection plays a key role in the viability of assets, resources and infrastructure, are emerging as clear candidates for AI transformation.
However, according to Anthony Cipolla, AI Lead with data-led asset management solutions firm COSOL, organisations across the asset-centric industry landscape exhibit mixed maturity when it comes to their AI journeys, and are looking for guidance on getting AI integrations right.
During a recent industry event, Cipolla discussed the concept of approaching AI transformation from a Walk, Jog, Run Framework, where organisations are encouraged to gradually build their AI capabilities sensibly and safely.
Whether companies are exploring computer vision, language models, prediction or enhanced insights retrieval from structured and unstructured data, this framework sees AI practices first needing to become trustworthy and repeatable, then later able to deliver real value, before late-stage scaling up into production across the business.
“The scale of the change that AI presents to all industries is perhaps comparable to the disruption brought by the internet, mobile technology and cloud computing (though likely more exponential in nature),” Cipolla explained. “At the same time, the concept of the Agentic-Web is being developed to determine how AI systems are standardised and communicate with each other.
“AI Governance has also become a priority for organisations, though the good news is that it builds on the existing Data Governance work many companies have already undertaken.
“Business transformation takes time, communication and understanding across organisations and industries. For asset-centric industries looking to walk then jog then run with AI, this means effective change management must also be one of the most important areas of focus.”
This pace of transformation is evident across related sectors, and this is highlighted by just how quickly AI is changing the software engineering space.
“During a conversation at Meta’s LlamaCon event in April 2025, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that within a year, approximately half of Meta’s software development could be handled by AI, with expectations for this proportion to grow over time,” Cipolla explained.
Integrating AI capabilities directly into existing business systems
Looking to harness the benefits of AI to provide its customers with more features, one company has taken steps to build AI features conveniently into its product, providing users with hassle-free access to frontier technology.
Leading enterprise resource planning and analytics software provider, Pronto Software, just signed a strategic agreement with IBM Australia, enabling the integration of powerful Agentic AI capabilities into its Pronto Xi ERP platform via IBM Watsonx.
Pronto Software Managing Director Chad Gates says the initiative is designed to democratise access to intelligence, helping businesses develop the capabilities of their teams.
“Rather than replacing workers, we’re using AI to elevate them,” Gates says. “Our customers, many of them family-run, mid-sized businesses, can enable staff to act strategically. Pronto Software can work with customers to build and deploy Agentic AI that not only informs, but acts on the information, unlocking real business value without compromising security.
“With Watson’s Agentic AI integrated into Pronto Xi, workers can ask a question in plain English and instantly receive forward-looking insights that support smarter decisions.”
This approach shows how businesses can adopt AI without disrupting existing workflows. Rather than requiring staff to learn entirely new platforms, the technology becomes part of the tools they already use daily, reducing the typical barriers to AI adoption.
“AI doesn’t have to be overwhelming or intimidating,” Gates adds. “It should feel like a natural part of your workflow, and that’s exactly what we are delivering. With this new capability, Pronto Xi becomes not just a system of record, but a system of insight and empowerment.”
Business shifting to GenAI: but are we unlocking its true potential?
Generative AI is dominating discourse across businesses across the world. Tools like ChatGPT, now generating over one billion searches daily, are rapidly becoming part of consumers’ and professionals’ everyday lives and have created the biggest upheaval in search and experience delivery that we have seen in decades.
A recent Digital, Marketing & eComm in Focus 2025 report, produced by digital, data and eCommerce advisory & consultancy Arktic Fox in collaboration with recruitment firm Six Degrees Executive, reflect this groundswell of AI utilisation intent and adoption, with data suggesting solid experimentation and some brands starting to scale AI use cases.
The study suggests that while most brands are aware of the key trends impacting the broad marketing and digital landscape, such as the acceleration of generative AI, the importance of first-party data, privacy law amendments, skills challenges, and the rise of retail media, investment and capability is often not currently aligned with such ambitions.
The report reveals that 59% of brands are experimenting with or scaling efforts around generative AI and AI more broadly to drive personalisation efforts. Half of brands are experimenting with GenAI for content generation, and almost a quarter (24%) are scaling up efforts here. Nearly half (49%) of brands are experimenting with using AI for insights generation, with 19% scaling up.
This is also reflected in the skills brands are looking to acquire. After four years of data and analytics being viewed as the top skills gap within marketing & digital teams, emerging technologies has now taken the top spot.
The opportunity for growth in the AI space remains considerable. Currently, more advanced levels of AI adoption are typically confined to larger companies. Just 13% of leaders believe their organisation is advanced in leveraging predictive analytics, with these mostly being brands with revenues in excess of $100 million.
“But while adoption is growing, most brands still face barriers to unlocking AI’s full potential,” said Teresa Sperti, Founder and Director at Arktic Fox. “Only 14% have a mature, unified customer view, despite it being a key investment area. Without strong data foundations, efforts to use AI for personalisation and experience delivery will fall short.
“Based on what we are observing in market, AI utilisation is still being driven by efficiency based plays and whilst some brands are scaling their efforts more sophisticated use of AI and genAI for experience delivery is still an opportunity for most.”
