Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) has moved from an experimental back-office capability to the operating core of
business promotion. This chapter examines how recommendation engines, programmatic advertising,
conversational agents, generative content tools, and predictive analytics are reshaping the way organisations
identify, reach, and retain customers. It traces the evolution of promotional strategy from mass broadcasting
toward algorithmically personalised engagement and details the computational principles that make this shift
possible: probabilistic prediction, contextual embedding, and retrieval-augmented generation. Documented
applications across retail, hospitality, banking, and small-business contexts are reviewed through named case
examples, and the evidence on return on investment is assessed critically. The analysis shows that wellinstrumented use cases such as email personalisation, chatbot-assisted conversion, and automated media
buying deliver measurable gains, yet adoption has far outpaced demonstrated business value for most
organisations. The chapter also examines privacy exposure, algorithmic bias, consumer fatigue, dark patterns,
and emerging regulation, notably the transparency obligations of the European Union's AI Act. It concludes
that durable advantage depends on pairing automation with human oversight, transparent data practices, and
disciplined measurement, and that promotion must be redesigned around human-centric value rather than
extraction.
