Transforming Consumer Experience With Agentic AI

With over two decades of global experience, Tina Vaswani has led numerous digital transformation initiatives and developed successful technology strategies. She is widely recognized for driving measurable business results and fostering high-performing teams. A passionate advocate for diversity and growth, she combines innovation with purpose to empower individuals and organizations.

In an exclusive interview with CIOReview , Tina Vaswani shared her views on leveraging GenAI and agentic systems to drive responsible innovation and meaningful consumer engagement.

Shaping a Career Through Technology

My career journey began as an IT auditor at Procter & Gamble (P&G), a role that instilled in me a strategic lens focused on rigor and resilience. Over 17 years at P&G, I embraced a variety of global leadership roles, gaining a broad understanding of how technology underpins different business functions. I drove the digital transformation of our North America Trade Funds Management system in Sales, led IT Operations for Supply Chain and Global Transportation Management, and spearheaded digital transformation for Marketing, where I owned key products in our marketing ecosystem. These experiences demonstrated that technology is not a siloed function; it is a strategic enabler for business growth, a foundation that prepared me for my current role as Vice President, Consumer Solutions at Mondelēz International. My guiding philosophy is that technology should not replace human creativity but instead augment it with intelligence grounded in empathy. This belief, combined with my background in digital platforms, data strategy, and governance, drove my decision to join Mondelēz.

At Mondelēz, I jointly directed the architecture and launch of our Creative Agentic Ecosystem. This pioneering initiative embeds generative AI into the marketing workflow, to enable faster content production and greater personalization, reflecting my commitment to driving impactful, ethical, and scalable innovation.

Guiding Principles for Ethical AI

As a leader driving the integration of GenAI and agentic systems into consumer engagement, my work is guided by the principle that scaling AI without accountability is a risk, not an innovation. I focus on ensuring these technologies create trust and long-term value by following three core principles.

First, Responsible AI by Design is essential. We champion a cross-functional “quartet” model – uniting Business, IT, Legal and analytics – to embed ethical guardrails from day one. Rather than slowing us down, this foundation unlocks new possibilities for creativity and scale.

 ​This (agentic) orchestration creates a symphony, not a solo performance, allowing us to deliver more content, better content, and faster, without losing what makes our brands human 

Second, I start with value, not technology. We moved from small experiments to embedding AI into core value chains, such as content creation, ensuring every initiative drives real growth and business impact.

Finally, data is the foundation. Scalable, secure, and connected data fuels AI models effectively and unlocks their true potential.

Designing with Empathy and Governance

I translate the concept of empathy into digital platforms by building systems that are both human-centric and responsibly managed. I deliver “empathy at scale” by grounding our AI in human understanding through both its design and governance.

For design, we ensure our AI agents are grounded in empathy by aligning them with the audience, brand, and performance data. The ecosystem is powered by knowledge bases trained on Mondelēz-owned data, ensuring the output is on-brand and on-strategy. This respects both the brand and the consumer by focusing on authenticity and relevance.

For data governance, we build on the principle of Responsible AI by Design. Our integrated operating model ensures that legal and data experts are embedded in the process , and an RAI (Responsible AI) checker built into our tools that screens both inputs and outputs against our guidelines, ensuring our agents respect privacy and brand tone. This proactive approach ensures we can scale our solutions on a foundation we trust.

Moving from Automation to Orchestration

Agentic AI marks a significant shift from simple automation to a more sophisticated, orchestrated approach. We’re applying this shift to create more meaningful consumer experiences by moving away from siloed tools toward a connected ecosystem. At Mondelēz, our Creative Agentic Ecosystem is powered by different AI agents that handle specialized tasks, such as generating e-commerce content or adapting product pages for different retailers. The key is that these agents are not working in isolation; they are connected and aligned with the audience, brand, and performance data. This orchestration creates a symphony, not a solo performance, allowing us to deliver more content, better content, and faster, without losing what makes our brands human. The result is a more relevant and responsive brand-consumer interaction.

Fostering Culture and Co-Creation

I foster a culture of curiosity and co-creation by moving beyond a structural approach to agility and making it a cultural one. When introducing emerging technologies like GenAI, it’s essential to bring people along on the journey to ensure they feel empowered and invested. I believe in continuous reinvention.

We start with intentionality from day one. Instead of allowing small, isolated experiments, we focus on a clear, high-impact value stream—our content creation process—that is directly tied to business growth. We took a “go big or go home” approach, committed to shipping a minimum viable product (MVP) that delivered at least one key business level. This mindset encourages rapid learning and adaptation, as the goal is always to deliver a tangible product. To foster co-creation, we expanded our traditional “two-in-the-box” model between business and IT to a “quartet” that includes Legal and Insights & Analytics. This ensures that all key stakeholders are at the same table, navigating challenges and co-creating solutions together in real-time. This integrated, cross-functional approach makes technology a strategic driver, not just a support function.

Insights for Young Professionals

Based on my journey, the advice I’d give to young professionals entering the field of digital strategy is to remain endlessly curious. This mindset is critical because the landscape is always changing, and you must be committed to constant learning. It’s not about being perfect from the start; it’s about staying open to growth.

Second, always start with the value, not the technology. Don’t be captivated by the latest tech; instead, find the intersection where a technology can unlock something critical for your business and commit to scaling it. This intentional approach ensures that your initiatives are directly tied to business impact and growth.

Finally, remember that digital transformation is a team sport. My career has shown me that responsible innovation and scaling solutions require cross-functional partnership. You must bring everyone—Marketing, Tech, Legal, and Data — in early and often to build trust. Most importantly, you need a strong, secure digital foundation because, as I like to say, “If AI was the brain, the data is the blood.” You need the right data to fuel the models and drive appropriate reasoning.