Why Emerging Markets Are Redefining Martech Benchmarks

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Global enterprises are recalibrating for an AI-first future, and the chaos of the martech stack is realigning faster than ever. 

While mature markets wrestle with tool fatigue and fragmented stacks, emerging regions are leapfrogging directly into AI-driven engagement models. From WhatsApp-powered commerce in the Middle East to agentic AI in Southeast Asia, the rules of customer engagement are being rewritten in real time.

“By 2026, every serious brand will need autonomous AI agents — not just generative AI tools, but systems that think and act in real time,” says Abithab Bhaskar, Chief Executive Officer – International Business at Netcore Cloud. 

While emerging markets adopt AI quickly, sustained advantage depends on building skills, data strategy, and measurement frameworks alongside deployment. Without these, brands risk leaving most of AI’s potential untapped, according to him.

In this exclusive interview, Abithab also emphasises that the next wave of customer engagement will be defined not by volume, but by intelligence, autonomy, and relevance — with agentic AI set to become the industry’s new baseline.

Excerpts from the interview:

Which international markets are currently underestimated in terms of martech potential?

“A lot of so-called ‘emerging’ markets are actually leapfrogging the traditional adoption curve.

Take the Middle East & Africa – mobile-first is the default, e-commerce is growing at double digits, and conversational commerce on WhatsApp is now a primary sales driver. Brands here are bypassing fragmented legacy models and going straight to AI-powered, omnichannel engagement.

In Southeast Asia, markets like Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines are building enterprise-level martech stacks with Agentic AI embedded from the start without the technical debt that slows down mature markets.

Even in Latin America, we see Colombia, Chile, and Peru proving ROI from AI in months rather than years.

At Netcore, we’ve seen MEA and SEA clients roll out full-funnel personalisation in under 90 days – something that can take years in mature regions. The opportunity isn’t in helping them ‘catch up’ – it’s enabling them to set new benchmarks for speed, personalisation, and measurable impact.”

How do you differentiate in regions where marketing automation is already mature?

In mature markets, the challenge isn’t a lack of technology; it’s technology overload. Brands often juggle a dozen point solutions, which leads to siloed data, fragmented journeys, and what I call ‘stack fatigue.

Our differentiation is intelligent orchestration. Instead of adding another tool, we unify engagement channels, customer data, and campaign intelligence in one system. Agentic AI then predicts the next best action, creates the right content, selects the right channel, and executes all in real time.

We’ve seen global brands cut campaign launch times by up to 60% with this approach. In saturated markets, success isn’t about buying more tools, it’s about extracting more results from a smarter, lighter, AI-powered stack.”

What’s the one AI capability that will be non-negotiable by 2026?

By 2026, every serious brand will need autonomous AI agents — not just generative AI tools, but systems that think and act in real time.

These agents won’t just write emails. They’ll predict churn, design retention offers, pick the best channel, and trigger engagement instantly while staying compliant and on-brand.

Early adopters of this ‘agentic marketing’ have doubled conversions, cut cost per lead by up to 70%, and boosted campaign performance by 30% without adding headcount.

At Netcore, our Agentic AI framework, a collective of specialised marketing agents, is already doing this for retail, BFSI, and ecommerce clients. By 2026, this won’t be a differentiator. It will be the baseline.”

Are emerging markets really leapfrogging faster than established ones?

“Yes, but with nuance. Emerging markets don’t carry legacy tech debt, so they can jump straight to cloud-native, AI-first solutions. That’s why Southeast Asian retailers are using WhatsApp as their primary storefronts, or Middle Eastern players are adopting predictive personalisation before large-scale email.

But tech adoption isn’t the same as strategic maturity. Without enablement training, data strategy, and measurement, brands risk using only a fraction of their AI potential.

At Netcore, we invest as much in capability-building as in deployment. We’ve helped Tier 2 and Tier 3 brands in MEA launch multilingual AI campaigns rivalling global players, not because the tools were there, but because we built the skills and frameworks to sustain the leap. That’s how leapfrogging turns into long-term advantage.”

If you could rewrite the “rules” of customer engagement, which old one would you retire?

“I’d retire the myth that ‘more messages equals more engagement.’

Consumers now control when, where, and how often they engage. Blanket campaigns and frequency-based growth tactics are dead.

The new rule: every touchpoint must deliver instant, personal value, whether that’s a timely WhatsApp reminder, a sustainability badge for eco-conscious shoppers, or an in-app reward triggered at the right moment.

Our data shows that one perfectly timed, hyper-relevant nudge outperforms ten generic messages. Relevance has replaced frequency as the growth engine. Brands that master this will win customer trust and double their conversions.”

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