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AI is amplifying cultural phenomena and reshaping consumer expectations. As algorithms prioritise what’s new and trending, brands are under growing pressure to adopt agile creative systems that can keep pace with shifting demands and cultural momentum.
A new kind of urgency is building inside marketing teams in India. You can see it in rapidly changing briefs, shorter timelines, and the uneasy sense that campaigns feel outdated almost the moment they go live. Culture is moving faster than ever, and so are the audiences brands are trying to reach.
It is no longer enough to deliver personalised experiences alone. The real opportunity now is to tap into broader movements, to be part of conversations as they unfold, and to shape them. That calls for content engines that are built for speed, flexibility, and constant movement.
Fuelled by AI, Driven by Consumers
The acceleration of how culture moves and consumers engage isn’t just a perception – it’s real, and it is powered by AI. Not only as a tool for marketers, but as a force that is actively reshaping how consumers search, think, and engage.
Recent Adobe research shows that 71% of consumers expect brand interactions to be tailored to their needs. Beyond personalisation, they also want content that is instant and relevant to what is happening right now. In fact, one in three consumers in India already use agentic AI, and nearly half expect to adopt it in the coming year. These behaviours signal an expectation of speed, novelty, and cultural alignment, leaving little room for static or slow-moving campaigns.
We’ve entered a world where algorithms reward what’s fresh, not what’s evergreen. The shelf life of campaigns is shrinking, and marketers who fail to adapt, risk watching their investments lose impact in real time.
The Shrinking Shelf Life of Static Campaigns
Not long ago, performance marketing operated like a well-oiled machine. Brands could rely on stable formats, predictable results, and controlled testing cycles. Today, even the best-performing ads wear out faster.
The rules of optimisation have shifted. Instead of rewarding conversion-driven campaigns alone, algorithms now amplify whatever feels current and connected to the cultural pulse. That means, campaigns that take weeks to craft may feel dated by the time they launch, or worse, get buried under more timely, reactive content.
Meanwhile, micro-creators, meme accounts, and AI-powered storytellers are producing and testing multiple ideas every day, often outpacing large marketing departments stuck in lengthy approval cycles. This is performance marketing in 2025: if you can’t meet audiences where conversations are happening in real time, you risk being invisible.
Rethinking the Production Flow
The biggest barrier isn’t creativity, it’s speed. Traditional workflows were designed for quarterly campaigns, not for an always-on cultural environment. Repurposing content often took as long as creating it from scratch, causing opportunities to slip by.
Today, generative AI is compressing those timelines. Copy, images, and videos can be adapted for multiple platforms in days rather than weeks. That speed enables teams to launch, test, and iterate quickly, responding to cultural moments as they happen.
This isn’t just about producing more content. It’s about producing smarter content: work that feels relevant, native to its environment, and emotionally resonant. It’s about building a creative infrastructure that can flex like a newsroom and react like a cultural war room, where campaigns are versioned, localized, and deployed in bursts, guided by real-time insights, all with the help of AI.
The Human + AI Creative Superteam
The fear that AI will overshadow creativity/humans is misplaced. The most effective strategies will come from combining human instinct with machine intelligence.
AI can generate variations at scale, model likely performance, and personalise for different audience segments. But human creativity is essential for cultural nuance, for tone, and for the emotional storytelling that makes content memorable.
When the two work together, marketing teams can intercept emerging conversations, explore multiple creative directions instantly, and publish campaigns the same day ideas are born. This blend of speed and sensitivity is the true competitive edge, and the perfect recipe for a successful marketing campaign.
Marketing in 2025: Built for Speed and Relevance
The brands succeeding today are not necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets. They are the ones showing up in the right moment, with the right message, in ways that feel authentic and meaningful.
This is what it means to move at the speed of culture. It’s not just about producing content quickly; it’s also about building an environment that is responsive, emotionally intelligent, and capable of turning moments into movements.
AI is already rewriting the rules for how people discover, expect, and experience content. The brands that embrace this reality, and build creative systems to match, won’t just keep up with cultural change, they will help shape it. This is the new face of marketing in 2025 – fast, fluid, and it’s only going to get more demanding as consumer expectations rise and cultural cycles shorten.
Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and do not in any way represent the views of exchange4media.com.