Sokrati: Myntra

The Challenge

For a business operating at Myntra’s scale, growth is not simply about increasing investment - it is about identifying new opportunities while maintaining efficiency. As one of India's largest online fashion and lifestyle platforms, Myntra manages a complex search ecosystem designed to capture demand across thousands of categories, brands, and consumer intent signals.

In 2025, as Google introduced AI Max, Myntra recognized an opportunity to rethink how it approached search-driven growth. The platform promised to unlock additional search demand through advanced AI-powered matching and optimization capabilities. However, as with any emerging technology, adoption required a careful evaluation of both performance and business impact.

The challenge was particularly significant within the retail category, where campaign budgets are highly dynamic and frequently adjusted to align with monthly business priorities, category performance, seasonal trends, promotional events, and changing consumer demand. Search campaigns often experience fluctuations in investment levels throughout the year, making performance consistency difficult to maintain.

At the same time, Myntra had strict ROAS expectations that could not be compromised in pursuit of scale. Any new solution needed to demonstrate its ability to drive incremental growth without sacrificing profitability. The team needed confidence that AI Max could sustain performance even as budgets increased and campaign environments evolved.

Another critical consideration was timing. With major tentpole shopping events on the horizon, Myntra required a scalable and reliable growth engine that could unlock additional consumer demand ahead of periods of heightened competition. The business needed evidence that AI Max could perform not only under controlled testing conditions but also at scale within a fast-moving retail environment.

The objective therefore extended beyond simply testing a new feature. Myntra, Sokrati, and Google sought to determine whether AI Max could fundamentally remove traditional scale limitations, enabling the brand to capture more relevant consumer intent, maintain efficiency, and create a more resilient search strategy capable of supporting long-term business growth.

The Solution

To address the challenge, Sokrati, Myntra, and Google designed a structured, data-driven adoption framework that would rigorously evaluate AI Max before expanding its implementation across the broader search ecosystem.

The initiative began with an eight-week proof of concept focused on selected generic search campaigns spanning three high-priority product categories. Generic campaigns were intentionally chosen because they represented a significant opportunity for incremental demand generation and provided an ideal environment for testing AI Max's ability to discover and capture previously untapped search intent.

During the pilot phase, all available AI Max optimization capabilities were activated to allow the system to maximize learning and performance. The team established clear measurement frameworks from the outset, focusing on growth, efficiency, incremental query expansion, and ROAS performance. Budget increases were introduced gradually and only after campaign performance demonstrated stability against predefined benchmarks.

Rather than pursuing aggressive scaling from day one, the team adopted a disciplined testing methodology. Performance was monitored continuously to understand how AI Max responded to changing budget conditions, shifts in consumer behavior, and evolving market demand. This approach allowed the team to validate not only short-term gains but also the sustainability of performance over time.

As the pilot progressed, AI Max began identifying and serving net-new search queries that traditional campaign structures may have overlooked. By leveraging AI-driven intent matching and advanced automation capabilities, the platform was able to connect Myntra with consumers demonstrating relevant purchase intent across a broader range of search behaviours.

The positive results generated confidence among stakeholders and established a strong business case for wider adoption. Following the successful completion of the pilot, Myntra expanded AI Max across all generic search campaigns.

This broader rollout coincided with preparations for the brand's first major tentpole event of the year, creating an opportunity to test the solution under significantly higher demand conditions. The implementation was carefully aligned with Myntra's growth objectives, ensuring that campaign scaling remained controlled while maximizing the platform's ability to identify additional opportunities for expansion.

Throughout the rollout, Sokrati worked closely with Myntra and Google to ensure strategic alignment, performance governance, and ongoing optimization. Regular performance reviews enabled the teams to evaluate campaign health, identify emerging opportunities, and continuously refine the approach as new learnings became available.

The adoption journey did not stop with generic campaigns. Building on the success of the rollout, Myntra initiated an ongoing A/B testing framework across brand campaigns to further understand the incremental impact of AI Max. The objective is to quantify the additional value generated by the solution and uncover new opportunities for future growth.

This phased implementation strategy helped mitigate risk while creating a scalable roadmap for AI adoption. By balancing experimentation with performance accountability, Myntra successfully transformed AI Max from a promising new feature into a core component of its search growth strategy.

The Result

The impact of AI Max exceeded expectations and demonstrated the significant potential of AI-powered search optimization within the retail category.

By unlocking incremental search demand and expanding query coverage, AI Max enabled Myntra to reach consumers who may not have been captured through traditional campaign approaches. This broader access to relevant intent signals translated into substantial business growth while maintaining strong efficiency metrics.

The most significant outcome was a remarkable 13X year-on-year growth of spends in generic search campaigns, highlighting the platform's ability to scale performance beyond previous limitations.

Importantly, this growth was achieved while improving efficiency. Myntra recorded a 27% improvement in ROAS, proving that increased scale did not come at the expense of profitability. The solution demonstrated the ability to absorb changing budget levels and evolving campaign conditions while maintaining performance consistency.

In addition, Myntra attributed 10% incremental growth directly to AI Max, validating the platform's role as a meaningful contributor to overall business performance.

The results provided clear evidence that AI-driven search optimization can simultaneously deliver scale, stability, and efficiency - three objectives that are often difficult to achieve together in a dynamic retail environment.