EPAM Systems Bets On Empathy Lab To Reignite AI Marketing Growth
EPAM Systems (NYSE:EPAM) has launched Empathy Lab by EPAM in North America to focus on AI-native marketing and brand growth. Industry veteran Ben Hall will lead the expansion, signaling a push to meet rising demand for AI-driven, orchestrated marketing that blends technology with human-centered design.
The timing matters. The stock sits at $138.85 after pressure over multiple years, so the market is looking for tangible progress from this launch-client wins, revenue impact, and faster delivery cycles.
Quick assessment
- Price vs. analyst target: $138.85 vs. ~$207.53 consensus target-about 33% below.
- Valuation signal: One estimate suggests the shares trade roughly 39.8% below fair value.
- Recent momentum: About a 36% decline over the last 30 days; sentiment is weak short term.
Why this matters for marketers
- AI-orchestrated marketing: Unify audience building, creative, media, and CX under one operating model.
- Human-centered design + engineering: Move from prototypes to scaled programs that actually ship.
- Measurement that sticks: Tie AI-driven experiments to MMM/MTA, incrementality tests, and creative intelligence-not vanity metrics.
- Brand growth focus: Make first-party data and consent-based personalization your default, not an afterthought.
Signals to track in 2026
- Named client wins: Look for public North American logos and case studies under Ben Hall.
- Revenue impact: Mentions of Empathy Lab bookings and contribution on earnings calls and reports.
- Time-to-value: 90-day pilots that move CAC, ROAS, AOV, retention, or lead-to-SQL rate.
- Ecosystem depth: Hiring velocity and partnerships across cloud, ad-tech, CDP, and creative tooling.
Stock backdrop (context for adoption)
Shares are down ~30.7% year to date and ~54.6% over three years, with a sharp 30-day slide near 36%. The current P/E is 20.3 and the forward P/E is 16.9.
Translation for marketers: the market wants proof. If Empathy Lab turns interest into billable outcomes, momentum can shift; if it lags, budgets and attention could tighten.
How to pilot Empathy Lab (and make it pay)
- Start narrow: Pick one high-impact journey (cart recovery, onboarding, win-back) with a single success metric.
- Bring your data: Connect CRM/CDP, consent flags, product events, and offline conversions. No clean data, no lift.
- Creative feedback loop: AI-assisted versioning, structured prompts, and weekly test-and-learn cycles.
- Unify media and CX: Coordinate audiences across paid, email, push, and on-site personalization.
- Guardrails: Brand safety, bias checks, legal review, and approvals embedded in the workflow.
If you want your team fluent in this approach, explore AI for Marketing and the AI Learning Path for Brand Managers.
Questions to ask in the first meeting
- Which use cases are production-ready on day one? Show live references and outcomes.
- How do your models learn from our data while protecting privacy and IP?
- What does a 90-day plan include-people, tools, deliverables, and a clear exit ramp?
- How will you attribute impact across channels beyond last-click?
- What's the path from pilot to scale-pricing, enablement, and knowledge transfer?
Risks to keep in focus
- Execution: With recent share pressure, slow traction will face scrutiny.
- Integration drag: Legacy martech and data quality can stall momentum.
- Model oversight: Drift, bias, and compliance require ongoing monitoring and content governance.
- Lock-in: Insist on data portability, transparent contracts, and clear service boundaries.
About EPAM Systems
EPAM Systems provides digital platform engineering and software development services worldwide. The Empathy Lab launch extends those capabilities into AI-native marketing and brand growth.
Learn more at EPAM Systems.
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