Ashoke Agarrwal

#Marketing #Advertising #Brand #SocialMedia #Writing #Thinking #Reading

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

India’s 400 million Gen Z citizens are often spoken of as a single voting bloc.
They’re not.
The future of political communication may look a lot like the evolution of modern marketing: Mass communication → Segmentation → Personalisation → Adaptive engagement.
My latest MxMIndia column:
https://t.co/penPDJM6DY
#GenZ #Marketing #PoliticalMarketing #India

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

https://t.co/wuWG3LirT0
My latest MxMIndia column: “The Doping of the Muse”
If steroids are banned in sport, what should society’s attitude be toward “performance enhancement” in creativity?
From absinthe to psychedelics to AI — artists have always used interventions. AI merely changes the scale and visibility of the question.
Perhaps the future won’t label AI-assisted creativity at all.
Perhaps instead we will label the rare works made entirely without AI.
“The artist seeks victory over silence.”
#FutureOfCreativity
#HumanCreativity
#GenerativeAI

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

Advertising once sought recall. Social media seeks replication.

Memes are now the currency of culture. Celebrities are human meme engines. And brands increasingly aspire to become “brandcasters” — continuous cultural presences rather than intermittent advertisers.

My latest MxMIndia column explores memes, virality, influencer culture and brands in the digital age.

https://t.co/BdR7AmNJiY

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

https://t.co/TNexuyY33B
We’re trying to regulate AI as a tool.
But it’s starting to behave like an actor.
Time to rethink the model: AI as an accountable economic entity
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #AIGovernance #Marketing #Technology #FutureOfWork #DigitalEconomy

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

https://t.co/WnbjQFxLCR
Over the past two decades, the Internet, mobile telephony and smartphones have changed life in many ways. However, the change, deep in many ways, has not redefined what it means to be human. AI, on the other hand, combined with other existing and emerging technologies, could effect profound changes that redefine the very boundaries of what it is to be human. Whether they narrow, expand, or do a bit of both is for the future to tell. In this fortnight’s MxMIndia column, I have attempted a peek into an AI-augmented life a decade and a half from now.

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

https://t.co/lAtGZnsPNj

Time moves fast. AI seems to move faster. Three years after I first wrote about the Diffusion of AI, a revisit reveals that it has moved from the challenging “chasm” phase to storming through the world like a “tornado”. In this fortnight’s MxMIndia column, while marvelling at its speed, I find that AI is an ecosystem that needs to share its bounty with the users, unlike the creators of social media platforms, who only harvest their attention and engagement. The best catalysts for harnessing AI's full potential are its users, provided AI platforms treat them as partners and co-creators.

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

https://t.co/VIHAu73LYQ
Increasingly, as the world worries about where AI will take us. Will it lead to economic disaster as Big Tech engages in a multi-trillion-dollar race towards AGI? Will it create a cornucopia of productivity leaps that benefit everybody, or will it lead to a jobs desert for the educated young and only enable the big cats to line their pockets further? In today’s MxMIndia column, I ponder the spectre of job losses and discover that the threat of AI in the work sphere is best combated by the promise of AI in the sphere of professional education.

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

https://t.co/6P0MZGmVwr
As the worthies gather in Delhi to discuss the potential of AI, a distinct peril looms on the horizon as OpenAI prepares to introduce advertising into ChatGPT. My MxMIndia column this fortnight does my bit to sound the alarm.

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

https://t.co/femIVYiH2E
As the world debates how AI will change the very rhythms of human society, I find it interesting and useful to contemplate how the Internet and the smart phone have done so. In my MxMIndia column this fortnight I explore an interesting framework to do so.

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

https://t.co/B1wlsxETqb
Travelling abroad on a business strategy assignment, I felt a little homesick for my first love- advertising. This short piece is the result.

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

https://t.co/u7KWtiXb6L
This is Book 2 of a meta-scifi novel I'm writing. A tentative title of the novel is "Requiem to a Universe". The first book is titled "The Hunger and the Light". I published it here in October 2025: https://t.co/xUyHJJRZ2Z. The novel emerged as I pondered the age of AI, and the thought came to me: what if AI were to become God-like? "The Hunger and the Light" features an entity musing on its experience and internal landscape as it creates and then consumes universes. In Book 2, the entity decides to experience life as a mortal across universes and eras. I intend for Book 2 to be in 5 parts - a recounting of its internal experience as five archetypal mortals with preludes where the entity muses on the experience. Here is Part One of Book 2. Would love your feedback.

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

Another year passes into the maw of an onrushing new year. For those of us who have seen one too many, thoughts inevitably turn to aging. Applying a professional lens, as I must for my MxMIndia column, I examine why some brands don’t age well while others do just fine.
https://t.co/ntLnOPJ3Mf

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

The art we love mutates and transforms with us. On most New Year's Eve's I ruminate with the books, the music, the poetry, and the movies I love. This year, as I re-read a beloved poem, it sprang a pleasant surprise on me, compelling me to write this post.
https://t.co/eZSMVeWEna

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

However, over the longer arc of history, it will probably be remembered as part of the beginning of the age of AI. In my MxMIndia column this fortnight, I look forward to 2026 in the light of the longer frame.

https://t.co/qTdZx8Cas9

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

As years go, 2025 will probably be remembered in the short term as an "annus horribulus" given its geopolitics and the overall state of the world.

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

@IndiGo6E your online website and App also suck. Trying to cancel and refund since morning. Is this another fraud that you guys need to be taken to task for? PNR N8UTRT Agarwal.

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

In 2025, as the transition is almost complete and another transition - the age of AI - looms, I revisit the topic.
https://t.co/4Ix2MKtAwH

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

Back in 2019, when I first wrote about Narrative Coherence as a brand equity dimension, social media, influencer and performance marketing were beginning to push traditional advertising to the margins.

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

https://t.co/TOAkR32CSs
The Internet and smartphones have led to a paradigm shift in the role of communication in human life, culture, and society. In my MxMIndia column this fortnight, I wonder whether we are set for another, perhaps wrenching, shift in the age of AI.

[Ashoke Agarrwal @ashokeagarrwal]

Why do news anchors tolerate somebody like @abbas_nighat. After 10 minutes even the entertainment value is lost.