AI in live entertainment could be the next big thing: Vasuta Agarwal, InMobi

In today's hyper-connected world, consumers actively seek personalized, authentic, and interactive experiences with brands. This has sparked a surge in Smart Lock Screen (SLS), bridging the gap between brands and consumers like never before.

According to Vasuta Agarwal,  Chief Business Officer, Consumer Platform Advertising, InMobi, “This transformative shift in the lock screen experience not only offers new avenues and possibilities for brands and users to explore but also transforms the lock screen from a dull, static space into a dynamic and interactive surface for consumers and brands alike.”

Vasuta is responsible for leading ad monetisation for all consumer properties of InMobi group globally. She has been with InMobi since 2012 and has worn many hats in her time from strategy to product management to business roles. 

Agarwal, who was visiting Mumbai on Friday, spoke to e4m at length. 

Excerpts: 

You are leading the ad monetisation for InMobi’s consumer businesses for the last 11 months. Could you share your observations from both global and Indian perspectives?

The main business in India and Southeast Asia is around the lock screen where we have the Glance (InMobi’s AI-driven smart lock-screen platform) products bundled with different OEMs. Moreover, we have established a strong presence in India in the last couple of years. We are present on 230+ million devices globally. 

On average, people are spending almost 25 minutes a day on Glance, which has grown a lot in the last two years. I think the interesting thing for us is the way this platform has evolved and the way the surface economy is changing and evolving. 

If you look at any smartphone, it has multiple surfaces. Also, the way users are interacting and spending time on different parts of it has been interesting and unique even for us to see how people are adopting this whole surface economy. Predominantly, Glance is bringing content to the lock screen in a single click. 

In the earlier era, you would have to unlock your phone and take almost seven, or eight steps to get into something that you wanted to consume, whether it was a video or some article, or some shopping experience. Glance brings all of that to your lock screen in a single click. It's been amazing to see how users are coming to like this and adopting this whole phenomenon in India.

We've already expanded markets in Indonesia and gradually to Southeast Asia. We still have some journey to go on the Glance lock streams, but we do have other products which are launching under the consumer platform side, and whenever they're launched, we can share more stats and details around that. 

How many brands have you onboarded over the past year and how is the lock screen helping them improve users’ experience, privacy and accessibility? 

We have onboarded 200 to 250 brands at a glance across different categories. They are using Glance to impact customers, enhance customer engagement, and foster brand promotion across the markets. The presence of Glance with 200 million plus users also helps brands in simplifying the overall customer targeting and retargeting strategy. For instance, if a car brand is launching a new vehicle in the market, it can connect and engage with 200 million users via Glance.

With the power of personalisation, we can easily access the user's behavioural patterns and the content they are seeking on their phones. For example, OTT brands have a new series coming up, they will come and engage clients and they will be like can you help engage my users about the show? Show them interesting snippets and trailers and even get users to interact with the show so that it builds buzz for the show. We have a lot of that kind of excitement on the engagement side. 

During IPL when people were sitting at home and watching the match they wanted to order food. The lock screen was one click away from the user. Brands like Swiggy and Zomato could use Glance in sending very interesting promotions and offers at the time of the match. 

Does personalisation really help brands to maintain long-term relationships with consumers?

Personalisation has to be done in a balanced way so that it also doesn't become intrusive to users. Because users also have to feel comfortable with the amount of communication and the kind of communication that they are receiving from the brand. For them to have loyalty and long-term relationships, they need to also trust the brand. 

There was a Telco brand which had some exciting offers around international roaming and they wanted to personalize it based on which destination the user would go to, their gender, and their age, because tourists are of different types, going to different destinations. They use AI for that personalisation to create that combination but they maintain a very nice balance as well so that users don't feel it is very intrusive.

I believe brands that can maintain that balance on Personalisation are getting good results, in terms of how they see the click-through rates or even the conversions and so on. I think if consumers find value in that, there is going to be a longer relationship that then sets in with the brand. Also, personalisation can lead to long-term retention and loyalty for brands.

From an eight-click journey to single-click one, mobile experience has seen a complete transformation over time. What next? What is cooking in InMobi’s kitchen now?

Glance itself has evolved very rapidly in the last few years. So obviously, a lot of innovation lies ahead, especially using AI. We're using AI in personalisation, but there are other areas around, for example, live entertainment, which is very hot and will get even sort of more interesting in the next year.  

Gaming is the other big one. On Glance, we have 75 million monthly active gamers who come and spend time on Glance's Nostra - the gaming destination. So that's again an area which can be very big and it is a global phenomenon already. 

How has been InMobi's ad monetisation business in FY23 and what are the projections for FY24?

Undoubtedly, the business has been growing a lot in the last two years. We have seen a lot of interest and adoption from brands with almost 220 brands working with us. We have ambitious business goals year on year in terms of growth but it is impossible to share the numbers. 

Do you have any plans for expansions? 

We will look at some more geography for sure. I think possibly in Japan and some other markets across the globe, I think probably in a couple of months we would be in a better place to talk about all of the global expansion and markets. 

InMobi has acquired close to 20 firms from across the globe. Are there any more acquisitions in the pipeline?

I think all the acquisitions we made so far are pretty much public. Not really anything else that I can think of.

Transcribed by Tanya Dwivedi