Published on: October 22, 2026
Reeva Sakaria, Co-founder of Yatri, explores how AI could help mobility advertising move beyond where commuters are to what they’re doing and what matters in the moment, while keeping responsible data use at the centre.
A commuter rushing to catch a train has little patience for anything that slows them down. The same commuter, waiting on a platform because of a 15-minute delay, suddenly has time to browse, discover and make decisions. The person has not changed. The moment has.
That distinction could shape the next phase of mobility advertising.
Mumbai’s suburban railway network caters to around 8.5 million commuters every day. At the same time, mobile accounts for 78% of India’s digital advertising spend, according to the ET Brand Equity-Ipsos State of Digital Marketing in India 2025-26. The audience is constantly moving through the city, while the screen through which brands can reach them is already in their hands.
For decades, mobility advertising has been built around where people are: station hoardings, train wraps, bus shelters and digital screens. These formats continue to offer scale and visibility.
But digital mobility platforms introduce another dimension: intent.
People use mobility platforms for a specific purpose. They check schedules, track journeys, plan routes or respond to changes in their travel plans. This creates an advertising environment where context can play a greater role in determining whether a message is relevant.
Consider a commuter on a 45-minute journey. With time to spare, they may be more receptive to discovering content, products or services. Now change the circumstances. If the same commuter discovers that their train has been delayed by 15 minutes, the additional time creates a different opportunity for engagement.
“The audience has not changed. The context has.”
This is where the role of AI could extend beyond identifying context.
Rather than treating every advertising impression as the same opportunity, AI could help interpret different signals around a journey and determine what type of communication may be appropriate for that particular moment.
Someone with 90 seconds before their train arrives is experiencing a different advertising opportunity from someone with 20 minutes because of a delay. A commuter beginning a journey may have different needs from someone approaching their destination.
AI could potentially help distinguish between these situations and enable advertising to respond accordingly.
This could mean changing the format, message or call to action based on the available context. A short wait might lend itself to a simple message, while a longer period could allow for deeper product discovery or engagement.
“The distinction is important because it shifts the discussion from personalisation to relevance.”
The objective is not necessarily to make advertising know more about an individual. It is to make better use of the information already present in the environment and understand when a particular message is more likely to be useful.
This also raises a larger question about how mobility advertising should be evaluated.
The traditional conversation often begins with impressions. But an impression only tells us that an advertisement was seen or delivered. It does not necessarily tell us what happened next.
Did the consumer engage with the creative? Click on it? Explore an offer? Search for a product? Visit a store? Or eventually convert?
These actions provide a different way of understanding advertising effectiveness.
AI could play a role in connecting these signals and identifying patterns between the moment an advertisement was encountered and the actions that followed. This could help shift measurement from exposure alone towards engagement and outcomes.
The definition of an outcome would also depend on the campaign. For some brands, the objective may be awareness. For others, it could be consideration, discovery, footfall or conversion.
The broader opportunity is to move away from treating advertising inventory as the final product and towards thinking about the quality and relevance of the interaction taking place within that inventory.
Mobility environments are particularly interesting in this context because journeys are constantly changing. Time, location, route, delays and commuter behaviour can all influence the circumstances in which an advertisement is encountered.
AI does not eliminate the importance of these factors. Its potential lies in helping interpret them at a scale that would be difficult to manage manually.
However, greater relevance also brings greater responsibility.
India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 establishes a framework for processing digital personal data and protecting individual rights. The Digital Personal Data Protection Rules, 2025 were notified by MeitY in November 2025, with implementation phased across different provisions. As contextual advertising becomes more sophisticated, responsible data use and compliance will remain essential to maintaining consumer trust.
The objective should not be to know more about individuals than is necessary. It should be to understand the context of an interaction without turning relevance into surveillance.
“The objective should not be to know more about individuals than is necessary.”
The industry has spent decades building advertising around where people are. The next phase could increasingly consider what people are doing while they are there, the context in which they encounter a message, and what happens afterwards.
For mobility advertising, this could mean a gradual shift from thinking primarily about inventory and impressions towards thinking about relevance, interaction and outcomes.
AI may be an important part of that shift. But ultimately, its value will depend on how thoughtfully the technology is applied, how responsibly data is used and whether the resulting advertising is genuinely more useful to the consumer.
Disclaimer: This article was originally written by the author. Views expressed are the author’s own. All rights belong to the original author.
