Adobe's Bhambhri on how GenAI is revolutionising the firm's CX management

The rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is changing customer experience management. Adobe is at the forefront of this shift, helping brands transition from broad digital interactions to more personalised ones. 

In a conversation with TechCircle, Anjul Bhambhri, Senior Vice President of Adobe Experience Cloud, explained how Adobe is using GenAI to improve customer engagement. She stressed the importance of responsible data usage and creating AI tools that support users rather than replace them. Bhambhri also discussed the value of conversational interfaces and direct interactions with customers, while ensuring adherence to data privacy regulations. Edited Excerpts: 

How is Adobe enhancing customer experience management, and what role do you see GenAI playing in its future? 

For nearly two decades, Adobe has partnered with brands to create personalised digital experiences, shifting from broad digital delivery to one-on-one, tailored interactions. GenAI now plays a critical role in this evolution, allowing Adobe’s products to drive these experiences even further. 

Adobe’s approach to GenAI builds on its long history in AI and machine learning. With GenAI, the focus is on three core pillars: Data, Models, and Interfaces. Data is paramount; Adobe only uses data and content it has rights to, ensuring "Responsible AI" by avoiding unauthorised or scraped internet data. 

On the modeling front, Adobe develops its own models for images and video (as recently showcased at Adobe Max) while integrating leading open-source models as needed to meet customer needs. This model output is seamlessly embedded into Adobe’s applications, enhancing tools for creatives, data engineers, and campaign managers, boosting their productivity. 

Adobe has also launched an AI Assistant across Experience Cloud applications. This tool aids users in navigating the platform, generating content, journeys, and audience segments, allowing brands to efficiently create and manage campaigns with human oversight. This means brands can engage customers effectively without overburdening their teams. 
 
With the rise of GenAI, there are concerns about it is replacing humans. How does Adobe ensure that your AI tools enhance human creativity without replacing it? 

Adobe ensures its AI tools enhance, rather than replace, human creativity. Within the Adobe Experience Cloud, they’ve introduced the AI Assistant, designed to support and empower users rather than take over tasks. For example, if a data engineer needs to know which data sources are used in certain segments, the AI Assistant provides this information directly, making the process more efficient and enabling the engineer to focus on higher-level problem-solving. 

The AI Assistant also accelerates learning, guiding users through complex software so they can become experts more quickly. By streamlining the “how-to” aspects, Adobe allows professionals to concentrate on strategic decisions and creative work. Adobe actively partners with customers across industries to identify and address specific workflow issues, ensuring that its AI tools genuinely enhance productivity rather than create obstacles. 

Adobe’s goal is to make professionals indispensable by boosting their productivity and allowing them to bring even greater value to their brands.

Regarding the Adobe Experience Platform and the integration of GenAI, what challenges does Adobe aim to tackle for brands? Could you also explain how AI-driven insights are helping Indian businesses better understand and anticipate customer needs? 

For brands, creating personalised experiences for a handful of customers can be done manually. However, achieving this at scale personalising for millions or billions across various channels (like email, SMS, push notifications, WhatsApp, etc.) requires a deep integration of digital signals. To do this, Adobe Experience Platform (AEP) unifies customer data to create robust customer profiles. These profiles allow brands to form specific audience cohorts, like targeting young professional women, and to choose the most relevant channels, such as mobile over website, for engagement. 

GenAI is crucial in personalising content across multiple formats and channels.  

This data-driven engagement approach, supported by Adobe’s new data center in India, ensures compliance with local data residency laws and boosts performance by lowering latency. Adobe’s data center, compliant with regulations from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, allows Indian brands to deliver fast, personalised experiences, supported by Adobe’s large engineering presence in the region. Adobe partners with Indian companies like Air India, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, and MakeMyTrip, further underscoring the value of GenAI in local and global markets. 
 
Looking ahead, what emerging trends do you see in the integration of AI with customer experience platforms and how your company is preparing to lead in these areas? 

Emerging trends in AI-powered customer experience platforms focus on creating content that targets the right audience based on data signals from digital channels. This approach helps brands understand customer behaviours and even identify new customer segments they might have missed. 

Another major trend is conversational interfaces. Brands currently use digital signals to build customer profiles, but the future lies in allowing direct, AI-driven conversations with consumers. This goes beyond traditional chatbots, enabling natural language interactions powered by GenAI. Such interactions allow brands to understand customer needs through “zero-party data” information that customers share willingly. 

This shift to conversational interfaces requires a strong focus on data consent, compliance, and privacy, as brands handle more direct customer information. GenAI tools, like ChatGPT, support this trend, but the future may focus on brand-specific AI that aligns with company standards and uses brand data.