Databricks Download: AI. Retail. Marketing. One Future.
Author
Tim Scarfe
06.18.2025
Databricks’ Data + AI Summit is becoming an essential annual event. At its heart however, it remains a quintessential San Francisco event. One where marketing takes a backseat to the actual technology.
It’s also the event to go to if you want to see the software which will shortly be changing our lives.
There were countless new trends and innovations on display over the three days. However a couple caught my eye as having a potentially outsized impact on upcoming retail and marketing trends.
Data is mainstream now
What do Fox Sports, 7/11 and Joby’s electric air taxis have in common? They were all showing off their data intelligence tools at this year’s event. Data has long been at the heart of most digital success, but it is only recently that brands and the broader public relations industry have begun to fully embrace PR tech as a strategic advantage.
I think that shows a shift in the level of understanding – and acceptance – of the role data is playing in our lives. Data intelligence on consumers isn’t something to be hidden, it’s something to be embraced. All within reason of course, but looks like brands are betting that consumers will prioritize an enhanced experience over complete anonymity online.
The future of retail is AI
I was fascinated by the previewing of shopping agents at Google’s I/O event the other week. I was also shocked that agents had become so adept so quickly.
Sitting in on some sessions however made it clear that while I was shocked, many companies were already planning on this future being imminent.
On this point, the increasing ability of LLMs to ingest images without mass tokenization was a somewhat recurring theme. And while it’s deeply technical, it also could have a profound impact in the age of agent shoppers. Because once this becomes a reality and a brand’s images are as influential as text to these shopping agents, the way products are presented online may need to shift to match these tendencies.
The future is also highly personalized
One other thing that stood out to me was the increasing importance of personalized, contextual data. Both through a macro and a micro lens.
At the larger end of the spectrum, LLMs have given brands the opportunity to ingest more macro contextual data than ever. And AI has given them the ability to make connections on a scale which would have been impossible a couple years ago. One area this really shows up is in the increasing accuracy of customer twins.
Audience segmentation is at a level many never thought possible. This means the smartest companies will be able to provide ever more targeted marketing and messaging to individual customers. While most companies currently personalize customer content based on the purchasing and onsite behavior of their customers, the extensive use of macro data will paint an increasingly accurate picture of all of us.
At the other end, there was a lot of discussion on optimizing the efficacy of onsite agents. And most conversations circled back to one point: the difference between a good agent and a bad one is the level of customer insight it is fed. Which is simultaneously obvious, but also a ray of hope for growing businesses. No one has more personal insight into their customers than smaller businesses. So despite AI commonly being focused as an enterprise disruptor, growing businesses may have an avenue to utilizing the technology to build superior digital experiences in the short term.
Every event gives an insight into the future. Few, however, offer a vision with such direct implications for consumer tech PR and the evolution of public relations strategy in a data-first world. As powerful language models become more accessible, companies are becoming more creative in how they can use this to their advantage.
It’s a data world and we’re just living in it.
Curious how these trends will reshape your brand’s marketing and communications strategy? Let’s talk about where data-driven integrated communications and AI-powered personalization can take you next.