Predictions: Experts Discuss the Future of Loyalty in the age of AI

Loyalty is in a period of significant change. As customer expectations evolve and new technologies reshape how brands interact with consumers, the traditional loyalty model built around points, rewards and transactions is becoming only one part of a much broader conversation and relationship between brands and customers.

Insights from industry leaders at the 2026 Asia Pacific Loyalty Conference point to a future where loyalty is less about the mechanics of earning and redeeming rewards and more about relevance, recognition, experience and genuine customer value.

Loyalty is moving beyond points

The future of loyalty is unlikely to be defined by points and tiers alone. Several industry experts have highlighted a shift towards experiences, emotional connection and recognition as brands look for new ways to create meaningful relationships with customers.

Aziz Kastoun, Account Executive at Eagle Eye, believes emotional and experiential loyalty remain underused opportunities. Rather than relying solely on transactional rewards, brands can look for ways to create experiences that connect with customers beyond their everyday purchasing behaviour.

Kastoun says, "Points are starting to become a little bit more expected or traditional. There's definitely some new ways and more expectation from younger generations to move away from points and more into experiential or emotional focused loyalty and rewards. There's a big opportunity for a plethora of businesses to change their perception on points and what's going to resonate with their customers and members."

Alison Caston, Head of Digital Marketing at Funlab, similarly sees loyalty propositions becoming more emotionally driven, with recognition and reward extending beyond purely financial benefits.

Caston says, "I think we'll see a lot more loyalty programme propositions skew to emotional connection with the consumer and away from points. So moving recognition and reward away from just a financial perspective and more emotional connection will gain more popularity."

AI will reshape loyalty, but relevance matters more than hype

Bel Lloyd, Customer Success Lead at Amperity, draws an important distinction between hyper-personalisation and relevance. 

"More data does not automatically mean a better customer experience", Lloyd says. "If brands personalise every possible interaction without considering whether it is genuinely useful, they risk making customers uncomfortable rather than understood."

That makes relevance the more useful measure of personalisation. The goal is not necessarily to demonstrate everything a brand knows about a customer, but to use that knowledge selectively to make an interaction more valuable.

Steve Hui, CEO & Co-Founder of The iFLYflat Flights Club, also questioned whether current approaches to personalisation consistently deliver on their promise. Customers may be told that brands can understand them at an individual level, but the experience does not always match that expectation.

Hui says, "All the loyalty programmes talk about having data - they can personalise - but I don't think I've ever received anything that's truly personalised to me. That's what we overestimate. We assume with the use of AI and the ability to personalise, people will want to buy, but I think it's way more complicated than that. There has to be a lot more breadcrumbs before you get to the point where you actually buy, and buy from a specific brand."

For Billy Loizou, AVP & General Manager APAC at Amperity, that means AI should ultimately enhance, rather than remove, the human element.

Loizou says, "The one thing about AI that I'm most paranoid about is it making everything the same. If I think of the best loyalty experiences I've had, there's a level of human connection. We can use AI to make the service element, concierge element behind the programme, easier, and empower humans to make it more human. I still believe the human connection inside of brands is the most important thing."

Agentic commerce will change who, or what, loyalty is designed for

On the subject of AI, perhaps the biggest emerging question for loyalty is the rise of agentic commerce.

Mandy Gallie, Vice President, Loyalty Sales APAC at Mastercard, described the growing shift towards AI agents making purchasing decisions on behalf of consumers. 

Gallie says, "We're estimating about 25% of all transactions will be done online, and over half of those will be agentic transactions, so not even performed by a human. What that means is that we're going to give over our decision-making power for more than 12% of all retail transactions, and that's just by 2030."

If that trajectory plays out, loyalty programmes will need to consider a new kind of customer interaction: one where an AI agent is evaluating brands, offers and benefits before a human ever sees them.

James Roth, General Manager of Operations at the Australian Loyalty Association, highlighted the challenge this presents. Human purchasing decisions are not always rational or based purely on price. 

"Customers may value status, points, affinity or emotional connections with brands, all of which need to be understood if AI agents are going to make decisions on their behalf," he explains. "That creates a new imperative for loyalty programmes. Their value propositions may need to become understandable and discoverable by machines, without losing the human motivations that make those propositions valuable in the first place."

The human connection remains the differentiator

Despite the pace of technological change, perhaps the strongest theme emerging from the industry discussion is that the future of loyalty remains fundamentally human.

Loyalty is a privileged relationship, where customers give brands consent and expect a fair value exchange in return.

Customer expectations are rising as AI and data make increasingly sophisticated experiences possible. This makes loyalty harder, not easier, as customers become accustomed to smarter technology, they expect brands to deliver experiences that justify the data and information they provide.

That value exchange can take many forms – better personalisation, relevant offers, recognition, experiences or simply being understood. But the underlying principle remains the same: customers need to feel that the relationship benefits them.

The future of loyalty will therefore not be determined by whether brands adopt AI, agentic commerce or the latest technology fastest. It will be determined by how effectively they use those capabilities to create experiences that customers genuinely value.