For decades, loyalty has been about emotion — trust, brand affinity, and the sense that a company “gets” you. But in an AI-first world, the gatekeeper to a purchase may not be the customer at all. Increasingly, it’s an AI agent making choices on their behalf.
These agents don’t “feel” brand loyalty — they calculate it, weighing price, quality, and user-defined preferences in milliseconds. And for merchants, this means loyalty must be built on two levels: emotional connection for the human, and measurable, verifiable value for the AI agent that serves them.
From Emotional Loyalty to Algorithmic Preference
Agentic AI — autonomous systems capable of making and executing decisions — is becoming embedded in the shopping journey. Traditionally, AI-powered recommendations influenced product discovery, pricing, and availability. However, AI agents are now fully automating shopping, searching, comparing, and purchasing processes without requiring active human input.
- Emotional loyalty: Earned through brand experiences and human connection
- Algorithmic loyalty: Earned through operational precision, data transparency, and explicit value propositions
To thrive, merchants must translate emotional brand equity into machine-readable parameters — so that both customers and their AI assistants choose them first.
Salesforce: Unified Data is the Foundation
Caila Schwartz, Director, Consumer Strategy & Insights, Salesforce
AI is fundamentally reshaping customer loyalty by bridging the gap between customers and brands, ushering in a new era of hyper-personalized, real-time shopping. Today’s customers expect intelligent recommendations that understand their needs, human-like conversations, and support available on their terms — all of which depend on seamless, integrated data.
Salesforce research shows that 39% of shoppers already use AI search tools during their shopping journey. These tools deliver highly tailored product suggestions by analyzing browsing history, purchase patterns, and real-time shopping signals. On the backend, AI drives smarter inventory management, dynamic pricing, supply chain optimization, and fraud monitoring.
But the promise of AI-driven personalization hinges on a unified commerce strategy. Without consistent, real-time data across all channels, the experience breaks down. An AI agent that recommends an out-of-stock product or misrepresents a price risks losing both the sale and the customer’s trust.
As AI agents take on a greater role in decision-making, merchants must get the fundamentals right: deliver substantial value, competitive pricing, quality products, and a frictionless experience supported by accurate, unified data. When these foundations are in place, brands can build loyalty that resonates with both the customer and the AI agent acting on their behalf.
AWS: Make Loyalty Explicit – and Machine-Readable
Vince Koh, Global Head, Digital Commerce, AWS
The rise of AI agents is not erasing brand loyalty — it’s making it more explicit and measurable. In this new landscape, a customer’s preferences can be translated into precise parameters, such as “prefer brands I’ve bought before” or “pay up to 10% more for sustainable products.” AI agents use these parameters to optimize purchase decisions, blending human values with algorithmic efficiency.
For merchants, the challenge — and opportunity — lies in being worth encoding into those preferences. This requires delivering verifiable, machine-readable value, such as faster shipping, extended warranties, and transparent sourcing. Vague brand promises won’t resonate with AI agents, but clear, tangible benefits will.
This shift also brings unprecedented transparency. When customers define precisely what they value and what they’re willing to pay for, merchants gain direct insight into proper purchase drivers. That clarity can enable sharper differentiation, more honest pricing, and products that align closely with real customer priorities.
The future of loyalty demands winning on two fronts: inspiring customers to choose your brand and program it into their AI assistants, and delivering the reliability, predictability, and transparency those assistants require to keep you at the top of the list. Merchants who embrace this dual approach will be best positioned to thrive in the AI-first era.
Winning Trust in the Next Era of Loyalty
In the AI-first era, loyalty isn’t disappearing — it’s evolving into a dual challenge: winning the trust of customers and the confidence of the AI agents acting on their behalf. That means more than just inspiring brand affinity; it requires delivering the operational excellence, real-time intelligence, and frictionless experiences that both humans and machines can verify.
But there’s a deeper question every merchant should be asking: Will you still recognize your most loyal customers when they choose to shop through an AI agent?
If an agent makes the purchase, will your systems still identify them as a high-value, repeat buyer? Or will they look like a first-time customer? And if you can’t see the identity behind the agent, how will you maintain the relationship you’ve built, or reward their loyalty in the ways that matter?
Merchants who unify their data, take an identity-based approach, and remove friction from the buying journey will be best positioned to answer those questions with confidence – and to earn and maintain loyalty whether the decision-maker is a person scrolling on their phone or an AI assistant making a split-second recommendation.