Can AI predict what consumers will buy before they even know it themselves? Future of predictive digital marketing
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Can AI predict what consumers will buy before they even know it themselves? Future of predictive digital marketing")
Representative image. Photograph: (Magnific)
Experts noted that AI can predict purchase propensity, identify customers likely to churn, suggest the next product and even flag when a creative is beginning to lose its pull. They also added that AI is becoming fantastically good at identifying patterns.
With the entry of AI and machine learning, predictive targeting has become part of marketing agencies' and different firms' efforts to predict future customer decisions based on behaviour patterns and historical data. The move comes as data is being utilised to predict the probability or likelihood of people's actions, such as making a purchase, engaging with products, or converting.
The tools can also facilitate brands in creating better customer personas, deciding on a targeted audience for campaigns, and ensuring potential customers see the most relevant ads possible. Predictive targeting has now become possible because AI and machine learning can process huge amounts of data to make predictions, which can be used in advertising and marketing to detect signals and get the right ad in front of the right person, at the right time.
Other major development including integration of personal AI assistants and AI agents that empower brands to make routine online purchases, book services, and negotiate deals on behalf of users. These tools began helping customers with a degree of autonomy, covering sectors like e-commerce platforms, online travel agencies, insurance marketplaces and the stock market.
Experts noted that AI can predict purchase propensity, identify customers likely to churn, suggest the next product and even flag when a creative is beginning to lose its pull. They also added that AI is becoming fantastically good at identifying patterns.
Reacting to the question of whether AI can predict what consumers will buy before they even know it themselves, Anuja Bhardhwaj, Creative Director at BC Web Wise, said, "Perhaps. But not because it can read our minds. It can read the trail we leave behind. Every search, pause, abandoned cart, repeat visit and change in browsing behaviour creates a signal. Individually, they mean little. Together, they can reveal patterns that suggest what someone is likely to do next. The Target pregnancy-prediction story made this idea famous years ago. The retailer wasn't psychic. It recognised a combination of behaviours that often preceded a major life change. Today, AI can process millions of such signals in real time. That changes the marketer's question from “What worked?” to “What is likely to work, for whom, and when?”
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"AI can predict purchase propensity, identify customers likely to churn, recommend the next product and even flag when a creative is beginning to lose its pull. The rear-view mirror is becoming the least interesting screen in marketing. But prediction comes with a catch. If an algorithm repeatedly nudges you towards something and you eventually buy it, did it predict your desire or help create it?" he also questioned.
"That question becomes even more interesting as AI agents start shopping on our behalf. The next battle may not be winning the consumer's click, but winning the consumer's AI. For creative leaders, however, there is another risk: performance without progress. Algorithms learn from what has worked before. Feed them enough successful campaigns, and they will get very good at making the next one look like the last one. And that is where human creativity still has an unfair advantage. AI can identify patterns, optimise decisions and predict the next likely move. But the idea that changes the pattern altogether? That still requires instinct, cultural understanding and a willingness to do something the data didn't ask for. The future isn't AI versus creativity. It's intelligence giving creativity more room to surprise us. Because the most valuable consumer behaviour may still be the one nobody saw coming," he added.
AI is becoming fantastically good
Expressing a different answer, Pratish nMepani, Founder, Starting Monday Design and Branding Co, said," Yes, I mean, the answer is both yes and no. But mainly, yes. Because AI is not really predicting the future; it is identifying patterns. There is a difference. But it certainly feels like prediction. Most of us have experienced that slightly uncomfortable moment when a shopping platform recommends something we were already considering buying, a streaming service suggests exactly what we're in the mood to watch, or an advertisement that appears for something we had only vaguely been thinking about. It can sometimes feel as though technology knows us better than we know ourselves. And in some cases, perhaps it does."
He said that AI is becoming fantastically good at identifying patterns, noting that every click, search, pause, purchase and interaction leaves behind a trail of signals. Pratish added that billions of these signals are jointly analysed, and thus AI can identify behaviours and preferences long before people consciously recognise them.
"But this is also where things get interesting. We spend a lot of time predicting consumers. We spend far less time understanding them. Data reveals patterns. Human insights reveal meaning. Throughout my career in branding and design, i've learned that people rarely make decisions for purely rational reasons. We would like to believe that we buy products because of specifications, pricing and features. In reality, we often buy because of trust, memory, aspiration, belonging, recommendation or simply emotion," he also said.
"AI can predict behaviour. Human beings create meaning. And human meaning has a habit of disrupting predictions. A consumer may fit the perfect profile for one brand and still choose another because a friend recommended it, because it reminds them of childhood, because of a memorable experience, or simply because it feels right. This is the wonderful inconvenience of being human. This is why I believe the future of predictive marketing will not belong to AI alone. It will belong to organisations that combine data with empathy, technology with real human insight and prediction with genuine understanding. Brands that succeed will not simply know what consumers might buy next. They will understand why. In branding, the "why" has always mattered far more than the "what"," he added.
