Published on: August 21, 2026
Bata India has transitioned its creative production from an agency-led setup to an AI-powered operating model, deploying autonomous AI agents across its end-to-end creative workflow. The footwear brand says the transformation, implemented in collaboration with AI marketing technology company Zocket, is generating annual savings of more than US$1 million in agency and production expenses.
The new AI-led system manages multiple stages of the creative lifecycle, including briefing, content development, review, publishing, audience response management and performance-based learning. Bata India’s marketing team now oversees creative execution internally through an AI technology stack developed with Zocket, while human teams continue to retain control over brand strategy, consumer understanding, campaign direction and final approvals.
Alongside creative production, Bata India has also shifted its online reputation management to an AI-agent model. For the past three months, the company has been using AI agents to monitor conversations and manage responses across key social media platforms without agency or outsourced support.
The workflow begins with briefs informed by real-time brand and category intelligence. Creative assets are then developed, adapted for different formats, reviewed, scheduled and published. Performance insights generated from each piece of content are subsequently incorporated into future briefs, establishing an ongoing feedback loop between content production and campaign performance.
A live intelligence layer supports the system by monitoring footwear trends, consumer behaviour, brand conversations, campaign context and broader market developments. This enables Bata India to develop and modify images and videos for digital campaigns, product communication and seasonal moments, while maintaining consistency in the brand’s tone across comments, consumer queries and direct messages.
The company says the AI-led approach has also improved productivity within its marketing team and reduced creative turnaround times. Rather than coordinating external agencies for execution, marketers can now direct the AI system while concentrating on strategic planning, brand building and decision-making.
Badri Beriwal, Chief Strategy Officer and Chief Business Development Officer, Bata India, said, “At Bata, we are continuously strengthening the way we engage with today’s consumer. Digital conversations are no longer limited to campaign windows. They are always-on, fast-moving and increasingly visual. We have moved from being entirely dependent on agencies for creative execution to running our full creative calendar on AI — briefing, creation, review, publishing and the learning loop that follows. It has made us significantly faster and more productive, and it is saving us over a million dollars a year in agency and production costs that we can now reinvest in building the brand.”
Karthik Venkateswaran, Co-founder and CEO, Zocket, said, “Zocket is proud to support Bata India on one of the most complete AI transformations we have seen in consumer marketing. Bata has moved from debating AI to deploying it, putting autonomous AI agents to work across brand moderation and creative production, powered by a living knowledge graph of the brand and its consumers. Bata’s team has set the benchmark for what category leadership looks like in the AI era, and we are committed to supporting them as they take it further.”
Bata India’s move reflects the broader shift among brands towards using AI not simply for individual content-generation tasks, but to automate wider parts of the marketing workflow. In Bata’s case, the technology spans consumer intelligence, creative development, publishing, reputation management and performance learning.
The company is positioning the AI-driven model as a way to increase speed and marketing productivity while reducing its reliance on external partners for creative execution.
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