PRAXIS 2026 Keynote 9
Sanjay Nair, Global AI & Brand Marketing Lead, Boston Consulting Group
Where does our value move? From Capacity to Advantage
Is AI hype or reality? How are top companies scaling it successfully? And what should organizations prioritize to truly stay ahead? AI is evolving rapidly, creating unprecedented opportunities and challenges across industries. Addressing these questions, Sanjay Nair, Global AI & Brand Marketing Lead at Boston Consulting Group (BCG), framed the debate with one line – “Where does our value move? From Capacity to Advantage.” He shared insights on Intelligence with Integrity: How Brand Narratives Are Being Shaped in the AI Era.
With artificial intelligence dominating the conversation around the future of PR and the future of business, it was no surprise, he explained, that it needed a dedicated communications professional to lead and execute integrated marketing campaigns showcasing thought leadership and the value proposition around AI and related technologies.
He argued that as AI becomes universal, value is shifting from capacity to advantage – urging organizations to turn efficiency into hard-to-copy differentiation, and professionals to move from output to impact.
Backed by 20 years of experience in marketing and communications, he brought deep sector knowledge, operational expertise and a global perspective on the trends and challenges shaping the technology industry.
Citing his career journey, he said – “Innovative thinking has been the hallmark of my entire career. But AI has supercharged it and has become part of everything I do – shaping stories and experiences, doing research, personalized content marketing, collaborating with teams, creating innovative formats and channel amplifications, measuring success and impact – every step of the way, driving innovation throughout the value chain and at scale.”
Everyone has AI. So where does the value move? From capacity to advantage, was his firm point of view. For the industry, the task is to turn efficiency into hard-to-copy advantage. For talent, it is to move from output to impact. “I’ve had to make that move more than once,” he confessed.
Efficiency is not the prize, it is the fuel. A labour-based value proposition gets harder to defend, and reinvestment is the real question.
The new agency–client equation: AI has definitely raised the bar. “I think they still seek relationships, intelligence, specialization and creativity,” he said. Clients have AI. Agencies have AI. Customers have AI. When everyone has the machine and gets faster and smarter at the same time, what is still worth paying for? Reputation, he suggested, now shows up at the cash register. PR, brand and marketing have become one intelligence system, and the advantage goes to the organization that learns faster than the environment changes.
On GEO, he was clear: it is not the destination, it is the rehearsal for a new operating field. “Nobody has twenty years of GEO experience,” he pointed out. The canvas of PR has also widened – you joined PR when PR stopped being only PR. It now includes journalists, creators, podcasts, newsletters, founders, communities, search, AI answers and culture itself.
AI may remove the bottom rings before it removes the ladder. Routine work taught pattern recognition; the fix, he said, is not preserving it but getting judgment reps earlier. Don’t compete with AI on the first draft – compete on what happens before and after it. And while AI doesn’t make humans special, it makes genuine humans easier to spot. With the internet about to fill with perfectly acceptable sameness, originality, taste, judgment & trust will stand out.
Despite the massive impression AI has created, he sounded a note of caution – “I think AI has the chance of making us all look stupid! It’s something to watch out for.”
His advice for individuals: build a career that can survive a change of label. Staying curious is essential, because curiosity has not changed. Skills travel faster than titles, and the apprenticeship won’t rebuild itself. “Change is constant. Speed isn’t. No one has the map!” The half-life of certainty is collapsing – so move fast on what compounds, and stay flexible on what changes.
Finally, the audience was left with three takeaways:
- Turn efficiency into advantage – reinvest the AI dividend into something harder to copy.
- Fix the North Star, flex the system – move fast on what compounds; stay flexible on what changes.
- Move closer to the consequence – for organizations, closer to customers, decisions and business outcomes; for people, closer to problems, judgment and accountability.
Use AI to climb higher, not just move faster, was his advice, adding that AI offers superpowers to everyone in marketing and communications – and embracing them wholeheartedly will keep people relevant and help deliver value.
So what exactly is the situation now? This may be the best time in a generation to enter PR. Not because it is safe, but because the old playbook is breaking and the next one has not been written yet. “You get to help write it,” he predicted.
In a conversation with Bhavna Jagtiani, CEO, Edelman India she questioned – how does an agency prove value when clients are assessing? If you don’t have AI specialize it in your organization. What AI is simply doing is raising the bar.
Mentioning Integrated Intelligence System, what should CCOs be responsible for? It’s important to see which one of them seizes the opportunity first. It’s more about the person being ambitious, about ‘value’. It’s an opportunity for any leader. You have to constantly push yourself. You cannot create value if you are not recreating yourself!
Taste is about exposure; judgement is about decision-making. The responsibility on leadership becomes even more. Invest constantly on training, he advised. It’s about ‘reimagining the model’.
The question came up – if you were 25 again, what would you do to spend the next two years? Pat came his answer – “You still have to be good at the domain of your profession and speed up ‘AI journeys’ which is the license to operating”.
So, the headline he pointed out rings in loud & clear – “whether you’re 25 or 45 there is no option to not learn!”
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