How artificial intelligence can change the core of marketing theory

Various recently-introduced applications of artificial intelligence (AI) operate at the interface between businesses and consumers. This paper looks at whether these in- novations have relevant implications for marketing theory. The latest literature on the connection between AI and marketing has emphasized a great variety of AI applica- tions that qualify this relationship. Based on these studies but focusing only on the applications with a direct impact on the relationship at the very heart of marketing, i.e., the one between firms and consumers, the paper analyzes three categories of AI ap- plications: AI-based shipping-then-shopping, AI-based service robots, and AI-based smart products and domestic robots. The main result of this first analysis is that all three categories have to do, each in their own way, with mass customization. A discus- sion of this common trait leads us to recognize their ways to mass customization that – unlike the traditional approach developed thanks to flexible automation and product modularity technologies – place the customization process within a broader perspec- tive of consumer needs management. This change in approach means that marketing should focus more on managing consumers’ needs than directly on the satisfaction of those needs. This finding marks a genuine discontinuity that opens up a new space for reflection for scholars and marketing managers alike.