A Systematic Literature Review and Empirical Study of AI-Supported Marketing Decision-Making in Indian Digital Firms.

Abstract

 In the bustling digital marketplace of modern India, where over 950 million internet users navigate a complex web of brand interactions, a quiet revolution is reshaping how marketing decisions are made. Artificial intelligence, once confined to science fiction, now sits beside human marketers in digital agencies across Mumbai, Bangalore, and Delhi, collaboratively steering campaigns that reach billions. Yet this partnership remains poorly understood, particularly in the context of Indian digital agencies where cultural diversity, linguistic complexity, and rapid technological change create unique challenges. While global studies celebrate AI's potential, they overlook how human marketers and intelligent machines collaborate in emerging economies, leaving critical gaps in both theory and practice. This study addresses that void through a systematic literature review and empirical analysis of Human-AI collaborative marketing intelligence, focusing specifically on AI-powered chatbot implementations from January 2023 to January 2026. Drawing upon complementary theory and Huang-Rust's collaborative framework, we analyse secondary data from NASSCOM's AI Adoption Index 2.0, IAMAI digital economy reports, and survey responses from 147 Indian digital marketing agencies. Our findings reveal that 87% of Indian enterprises operate at early stages of AI maturity, with digital agencies showing a 66% adoption rate—significantly higher than global averages. Agencies implementing structured Human-AI collaborative chatbot systems report 40% higher user engagement and 25% reduced operational costs compared to siloed approaches. However, inconsistent leadership commitment and ad-hoc implementation strategies persist as major barriers. This research contributes to marketing theory by extending collaborative intelligence frameworks to the Indian context and provides practical guidelines for optimising Human-AI partnerships in digital agency settings.