Deloitte Singapore’s Dorothy Peng explores designing emotionally intelligent brand experiences in the age of AI

She emphasised how personification, not just personalisation, is reshaping the future of customer experience.

As customer expectations continue to evolve, organisations are being challenged to redefine what it means to deliver a meaningful brand experience. Beyond traditional approaches to customer engagement, brands today must navigate the complexities of emerging technologies, diverse stakeholder needs, and the growing demand for emotional intelligence across touchpoints.

Offering valuable insight is Dorothy Peng, Customer Strategy & Design Partner at Deloitte Singapore, bringing close to 20 years of experience in leading teams across innovation, digital, brand, products and services, as well as marketing and communication.

In her current role, she leads Customer Strategy & Design projects across Southeast Asia, and leads a team of researchers, strategists, and designers, working with clients across the region to transform their digital experiences. She is a trusted advisor to C-suites, driving digital and innovation within their companies and has led multiple large-scale design and build programmes across the region.

As a judge at the Asian Experience Awards 2025, Dorothy highlighted how brands can design with purpose, embed emotional intelligence, and harness the power of AI to forge deeper, more human connections.

As companies across industries continue to prioritise customer-centric strategies, what do you believe are the core components of a truly meaningful brand experience in today’s environment?

Today, every brand is racing to personalise experiences, which is important, and is something that customers are increasingly expecting. However, I believe the real opportunity isn’t just in personalisation, it’s in personification.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is proving to be a transformative force, even taking on the role of the face of the brand. Amidst this environment, the most meaningful experiences—across chat, voice, and embedded interfaces—will come from AI that isn’t just smart, but on-brand. I call this ExperienceAI: designing AI that reflects your brand’s tone, values, and emotional intelligence. In a world where customers are interacting with more and more algorithms, the question goes beyond just ‘What does your brand say?’ but also ‘Who is your brand?’. This personification will be the new frontier of a truly meaningful brand experience.

How can companies ensure that their brand experience efforts remain consistent across digital and physical channels whilst still adapting to local stakeholder needs?

Consistency needs to show up as brand coherence, not just uniformity. This includes having clear values and design principles regardless of channel or market. The brand experience could show up slightly differently depending on the target segments and local context, but it should be rooted in the same emotional and artificial intelligence. Leaders also need to ensure that AI is used with appropriate guardrails in place, in a way that adds to the brand experience and inspires trust.

Across the diverse industries you’ve advised, what approaches have proven most effective in turning brand purpose into tangible stakeholder experiences?

The mistake many brands make is treating purpose as a one-way message to communicate, rather than a behaviour to design for. The most effective approach I’ve seen is to operationalise purpose into experience code. This means translating values into specific aspects, such as the decision matrix, escalation logic and experience principles that show up consistently across touchpoints, personalised for the segment it targets. The brand’s beliefs should be thoughtfully infused and deeply embedded into how the systems respond, how interfaces feel, and how people are treated through that experience code, so it is operationalised through systems, not just slogans.

How can leadership teams embed customer and stakeholder priorities into the organisation’s long-term transformation agenda?

Many transformation agendas claim to be customer-led, but they’re too often still shaped by internal silos with not enough focus on external needs. Embedding stakeholder priorities to me means positioning the business around customer segments, their needs, wants and motivations, and letting those opportunities shape how you decide, design, and deliver. This involves gathering quality data and insights about your customers across touchpoints and identifying opportunities to streamline operations or provide new services.

Looking ahead, how do you foresee emerging technologies reshaping the way brands build emotional and functional connections with their audiences?

Emerging technologies won’t just change how brands connect, they will change who the brand is in that connection. With AI becoming the interface that customers engage with, brands now have the ability—and the responsibility—to show up with emotional intelligence, not just efficiency.

The most meaningful connections going forward will not come from better targeting or messaging, but from designing AI that embodies the brand’s personality, adapts to customer context, and knows when to act, pause, or escalate.

In the future, the strength of a brand will be measured not just by awareness or loyalty, but by how trusted its AI becomes in the moments that matter.

As a returning judge for the Asian Experience Awards, what key qualities will you be focussing on when evaluating this year’s nominees?

I’m a big advocate of emotional intelligence, so I’ll be looking for experiences that demonstrate real brand distinctiveness, where a brand’s personality is felt in the micro-moments and how the experience is designed.

The best brand experiences will be those that feel coherent, responsive, and unmistakably themselves, regardless of who or what is delivering the service.