Hussein Kandil
Vice President, Brand Marketing CEMEA, Visa

The Visa brand marketing chief for CEMEA on why AI’s real value in marketing lies in decisions rather than content, why marketers must move from optimising for search to optimising for recommendation, and why agentic commerce will only scale if it is trusted.

BB: What’s the biggest misconception people have about how AI is actually shaping brand and marketing strategy in payments?

HK: The biggest misconception is that AI’s primary role in marketing is content creation. While that gets most of the attention, we are seeing even greater value in areas like insights, consumer understanding and decision making.

For example, we are increasingly using AI to analyse large volumes of consumer conversations, behavioural signals and market data across dozens of markets, to identify emerging trends and unmet needs that would be difficult to uncover through traditional research alone.

The real opportunity is not creating more content. It is making smarter decisions, moving faster and building experiences that are more relevant to consumers.

BB: What’s one initiative from the past year you’d point to as evidence of where brand marketing at Visa, and payments innovation in the region more broadly, is actually heading?

HK: One example is our work using first party data and advanced measurement to create more personalised and context aware travel marketing experiences across the Gulf region. Rather than relying solely on broad demographic targeting, we focused on reaching consumers at relevant moments in their journey, combining data, creativity and deterministic measurement.

It reflects a broader shift toward precision, accountability and experiences that are genuinely useful rather than simply attention grabbing.

BB: Where do you see the biggest gap between how AI in fintech marketing is discussed publicly and how it’s actually being used to reach consumers across such varied markets?

HK: Public conversations tend to focus on AI generating content, but much of the real world value today comes from helping brands understand how consumers discover and evaluate products and services.

A good example is the growing importance of AI powered recommendation engines and conversational search. Rather than typing keywords into a search engine, consumers are increasingly asking questions such as “What’s the best card for travel?” or “What’s the safest way to pay online?” This creates an entirely new discovery environment, where brands need to understand not only what consumers are searching for, but also how AI systems are recommending and describing them.

The challenge for marketers is shifting from optimising for search to optimising for recommendation.

BB: What’s a lesson from leading brand marketing across CEMEA that you think other marketing leaders underestimate?

HK: The biggest lesson is that scale and localisation are not opposing forces. They are mutually reinforcing. Across more than 80 markets spanning Central Europe, the Middle East, Africa and beyond, we have learned that the most effective brand platforms are built around universal human truths but designed to flex locally.

Marketing leaders often underestimate the complexity of balancing consistency with cultural relevance. The brands that win are those that create a strong, coherent global platform while empowering local teams to adapt it in ways that feel authentic to their consumers, cultures and stages of market development.

In a region as diverse as CEMEA, the goal is not to create one campaign that works everywhere. It is to build one idea that can mean something different to everyone.

BB: Looking at MENA’s technology and innovation sector as a whole, what’s the shift you expect to matter most over the next two to three years?

HK: AI is reshaping how transactions are initiated, authorised and trusted, shifting commerce from a manual search and click model to a more intelligent, agent led experience.

Consumers will increasingly interact with intelligent assistants that help them discover, compare and choose products and services, while businesses will use AI to create more seamless and trusted experiences. Visa’s aim is to ensure transactions are trusted, secure and seamless. Agentic commerce will only scale if it is trusted.

This trend is already emerging in discussions around AI enabled commerce and recommendation engines within the payments ecosystem.