Abstract
Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming increasingly embedded in the way businesses promote their products, communicate with customers, and make marketing decisions. Earlier applications were mainly concerned with analysing customer data and predicting behaviour, whereas current systems can also generate content, recommend products, communicate with customers, and support decisions in real time. This paper examines the development of AI-driven business promotion through a critical review of academic and institutional literature. Particular attention is given to customer segmentation and personalization, predictive analytics, recommendation systems, chatbots, marketing automation, and generative AI. The literature indicates that AI can make promotional activities more responsive and can reduce the amount of routine work involved in analysing information and producing content. At the same time, the evidence does not support the idea that AI automatically improves marketing performance. Results depend on the quality of data, the purpose for which AI is used, organizational capabilities, and the way customers perceive AI-mediated communication. Privacy, security, algorithmic bias, transparency, and authenticity have consequently become central concerns. Recent studies on generative AI are especially relevant because they show that consumers may react differently to AI-created communication than to human- created communication. Looking ahead, multimodal generative AI, real-time personalization, predictive customer journeys, and AI agents are likely to expand the range of promotional activities that can be automated or augmented. The paper argues that the long-term value of AI-driven promotion will depend less on automation alone and more on the combination of technological capability, human judgement, reliable data, and responsible governance.