The signals are everywhere. Consumers are moving faster, across more channels, with less patience for brands that haven’t kept up. Arnab Sen, Chief Executive Officer at iQuanti, and Jonathan Gagliano, Chief Growth Officer, sat down to discuss what’s happening, what it means for clients, and what iQuanti is building in response.
The Hype Is Real. So Is the Shift.
Both agree that the noise around AI is real but so is the underlying shift. The hype, Gagliano notes, actually makes it harder for brands to act, because they can’t separate signal from noise. But the data cuts through: according to Bain’s Consumer Lab, between 30% and 45% of US consumers are already using generative AI to research and compare products. McKinsey found that shoppers today use twice as many channels to make purchase decisions as they did a decade ago. Twice, and that’s before agents become mainstream.
Sen adds that “when agents do become mainstream, when a consumer can set up a buying agent that says ‘find me the best home equity loan when rates drop below 6.5%’ the entire concept of brand discovery changes. The consumer isn’t browsing anymore. Their agent is deciding. So the question for every brand becomes: are you visible and credible in the places where those decisions are being made?”
What it means for financial services specifically
In financial services, where iQuanti has spent nearly two decades building its deepest expertise, the stakes are even higher. As Gagliano points out, “people today maintain more than ten financial relationships simultaneously. They are not loyal to a brand; they are loyal to the best AI answer/content/review/influencer at the right moment, navigating financial decisions through a stream of micro-moments of advocacy.”
“Most marketing organizations are still structured, staffed, and measured for a world that is ceasing to exist,” he added.
The transformation is clear. What clients need from a partner in this environment is something different entirely.
Is this shift unique to financial services
While financial services remain iQuanti’s deepest area of expertise, we’re seeing the same shift play out across our clients in healthcare, insurance, retail, travel, and other industries.
“The complexity of financial services makes these changes more visible because decisions involve higher consideration, greater trust, and longer customer journeys,” Sen explains. “But the underlying shift is universal. Consumers are increasingly discovering, evaluating, and making decisions through LLMs, AI assistants, search, social, and emerging agentic platforms rather than following a predictable path.”
Consumers navigate financial decisions through a stream of micro-moments of advocacy.
Gagliano agrees. “The questions CMOs are asking are remarkably similar regardless of industry: How do we remain discoverable? How do we influence decisions happening beyond our owned channels? And how do we connect consumer signals to business outcomes? That’s why iQuanti follows the consumer, not the channel.”
What clients need from partners
Gagliano is passionate that brands need a partner that is accountable for outcomes. The old agency model was built on activity – doing tasks and reporting on them. What clients are asking for, consistently, is a partner with skin in the game. One who can say: here is what we are going to move, here is how we are going to move it, and here is how we will know. Further, partners need to have a fully developed continuous optimization platform in order to change at the speed of consumers and business.
“That is where iQuanti is genuinely different,” Sen explains. “iQuanti is a data-powered, AI-enabled outcomes company and it’s not just a tagline, but as the architecture of how it works. The firm starts with data and insights, connects those to the first-party data clients already have, and builds from there. It follows the consumer. It does not lead with a channel and work backwards,” he added.
Gagliano frames it this way, “iQuanti has the ability to be sharply focused in a way that most traditional services firms simply cannot be. There is an organizational gravity in those structures that works against speed and precision. iQuanti is built lean, built deep, and built to act fast, and that focus is a decisive advantage when the market is moving this quickly.”
Introducing iQ.Impact: Connecting Everything
That philosophy finds its fullest expression in iQ.Impact, iQuanti’s next-generation AI orchestration platform, and the next chapter the two leaders are most energized about.
The challenge Gagliano hears from CMOs is not a lack of data. It is that the data doesn’t connect, nor are the right insights used in the micro-moments consumers prefer. Offline, online, conversational, it sits in silos. Without a connected view of the full consumer journey, brands cannot optimize it, and they cannot connect marketing investment to the outcomes that matter at the board level.
iQ.Impact integrates offline, online, and conversational data, and surfaces the insights that drive decisions.
iQ.Impact is built to close that gap. Gagliano describes it as the platform that takes iQuanti from being a great marketing firm to being the outcomes partner clients need for this next era which includes integrating offline, online, and conversational data, and surfacing the insights that actually drive decisions.
Sen adds to that and mentions about ‘AI in the loop’ approach with iQuanti’s proprietary platforms and AI-first workflows are embedded across strategy, execution, and measurement, with AI in the loop at every stage, not just the last mile which helps the company turn every consumer signal into enterprise growth.
The Next Chapter Starts With the Consumer
The marketing industry, Gagliano reflects, is going through its most consequential transformation. The brands that win will be the ones that follow the consumer, not the ones waiting for the consumer to come back to them. The partners that win will be the ones who can move fast, stay sharp, and prove their impact.
For Sen, that is exactly why iQuanti is built the way it is, and exactly why Gagliano is here. The next chapter is about bringing this to more clients, faster, with results that change what they believe a growth partner can actually be.
To know more about iQ.Impact and what iQuanti can do for your brand, get in touch.
