“We’re building the operating system for influencer marketing”: Gautam Madhavan, founder, Xley.ai

The goal of influencer marketing was to humanise advertising, but instead it has devolved into a complex web of spreadsheets, direct messages, exaggerated metrics, and conjecture. Xley.ai is a platform that promises to bring order and sanity to the chaos. Gautam Madhavan, the founder of Xley and a former insider in the creator economy, is in charge of creating a command centre for brands that uses machine learning.

In this interview with BrandWagon Online, Madhavan dives deep into how Xley is cutting the clutter, tackling fraud, and helping brands not only discover the right influencers, but actually measure what matters. (Edited Excerpts)

What fundamental inefficiencies is Xley helping brands with in the increasingly crowded influencer marketing market, and how is AI actually enhancing those results?

Brands today grapple with fragmented workflows—from manual creator searches and vetting via spreadsheets and DMs, to jumbled campaign briefs and inconsistent tracking. Xley resolves these inefficiencies by consolidating discovery, collaboration, approvals, and performance monitoring within one AI‑powered platform. With access to over 200 million creators across YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, coupled with 25+ smart filters (including demographics, language, niche, interests, and engagement metrics), brands can rapidly pinpoint relevant creators using ML‑backed scoring. AI further enhances outcomes by generating real‑time insights on reach, engagement, audience affinity, and campaign ROI—eliminating guesswork and enabling instant optimisations.

2. Influencer discovery is crowded with tools. What is the core differentiator in Xley’s discovery engine? Is it audience mapping, authenticity scoring, or predictive engagement modeling?

While many platforms offer basic filtering or audience data, Xley stands out by delivering scale, precision, and intelligence in its discovery process. Beyond demographics, it integrates engagement data, audience interests, and brand affinities into its creator recommendations. Its ML‑powered engine synthesises this information into predictive performance forecasts and cost estimates, enabling brands to intelligently assess each creator’s potential before launch. This combination of deep analytics, predictive modeling, and global reach makes Xley’s discovery unmistakably differentiated from tools focused on singular aspects like audience mapping or authenticity scoring.

3. You’ve claimed Xley reduces manual effort by 50 percent. Could you break that down? Which processes are automated, and what measurable efficiencies are brands seeing in campaign ROIs or timelines?

Xley significantly reduces the manual burden on brands by automating nearly half of the influencer campaign workflow. Historically, brands have had to spend hours manually sourcing creators, negotiating contracts over email, briefing them individually, coordinating deliverables, and tracking campaign progress across multiple platforms. With Xley, this fragmented process is replaced by a unified dashboard that centralizes discovery, outreach, approvals, communication, performance monitoring, and reporting, underpinned by powerful AI and ML. The platform’s sophisticated filters and ML-based scoring systems enable brands to source and vet creators in seconds, rather than days.

As a result of this automation, Xley reports operational time reductions of around 50%, cost savings of roughly 30%, a 40% uplift in impressions, and campaign turnaround times that are nearly twice as fast. For brands, this means executing more campaigns with sharper targeting and real-time adjustments, delivering higher ROI with fewer resources. By simplifying every stage of the influencer marketing journey, Xley helps teams become faster, leaner, and more strategic in their execution.

5. How are you addressing influencer fraud, such as fake followers, engagement pods, or audience mismatch, and what safeguards are built into Xley to ensure credibility and compliance?

Xley incorporates robust measures to ensure campaign integrity:

Verified creator profiles: Data-backed creator vetting based on real engagement and audience demographics.

Engagement analysis: Multidimensional ML scoring detects anomalies like bot-driven likes or pod engagement.

Audience mapping: Detailed demographic and interest profiling reduces audience mismatches.

Compliance automation: In-platform approvals, transparent briefs, and deliverable tracking reduce “off-platform” ambiguity.

Global standards: As an invite-only network with an enterprise structure under MAD Group, credibility is strongly enforced.

6. With influencer marketing budgets growing across sectors, which categories, such as FMCG, auto, or fintech, are using Xley most actively, and how does usage differ across them?

As the founder of Xley.ai, I’ve observed that FMCG, fintech, and auto sectors are among the most active users of our platform, each leveraging Xley’s AI-driven influencer marketing tools in distinct ways. FMCG brands, particularly in beauty and food, dominate due to their need for high-volume, visually engaging campaigns. They use Xley to identify micro-influencers with hyper-local audiences, enabling rapid content creation and authentic engagement to drive product trials. For example, FMCG clients often prioritize short-form video content on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, using our predictive analytics to optimize for virality and reach.

Fintech companies, on the other hand, focus on trust and education. They leverage Xley to partner with niche influencers in finance and tech spaces who can simplify complex products like investment apps or payment platforms. Our platform’s ability to analyze audience sentiment and credibility metrics helps fintech brands select influencers who resonate with skeptical audiences, driving conversions through targeted tutorials or reviews.

The auto sector uses Xley to blend aspirational and technical storytelling. Luxury and electric vehicle brands, in particular, rely on our platform to connect with influencers who can showcase lifestyle appeal alongside technical features like sustainability or performance. They often utilize Xley’s cross-platform campaign tracking to measure engagement across YouTube reviews and Instagram Stories, ensuring alignment with premium brand positioning.

The key difference lies in campaign objectives: FMCG prioritizes scale and frequency, fintech emphasizes trust and conversions, and auto focuses on premium storytelling and engagement depth. Xley’s AI tailors influencer selection and campaign strategies to these unique needs, ensuring measurable impact across sectors.

7. Beyond discovery and execution, how does Xley help brands close the loop on attribution? Is the platform enabling deeper integrations with e-commerce, CRM, or performance marketing dashboards?

At Xley.ai, we go beyond influencer discovery and execution by offering precise attribution tools to prove ROI. Our platform tracks engagement, clicks, and conversions across platforms, tying them directly to specific influencers and campaigns using tracking links, UTM parameters, and pixels.

We integrate seamlessly with Shopify, Magento, Salesforce, HubSpot, Google Analytics, and Meta Ads Manager to close the attribution loop—mapping influencer impact from content to checkout and lead generation.

Our AI-driven attribution model weighs multi-touchpoint impact, helping brands optimise budgets with data-backed insights. Xley is a complete, analytics-first solution for influencer marketing.