Adopters of AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini are increasingly setting brand preferences within chatbots, posing significant challenges to traditional loyalty programs. According to new findings from Gale agency, over half (56%) of surveyed consumers are now comfortable delegating their entire communications with a brand through AI (Retail Dive - Technology). Nearly one-third have instructed an AI assistant to prioritize certain brands over others, and roughly a quarter of respondents indicated they will regularly set brand preferences with AI within the next year (Retail Dive - Technology).
The shift compounds an already volatile loyalty market where the average consumer is enrolled in four to six loyalty programs but many are inactive "ghost members." Younger consumers—particularly those aged 25 to 34—show high expectations for seamless experiences; 61% of this cohort abandoned a brand for a competitor due to superior loyalty experience, even when the competitor's actual rewards were worse (Retail Dive - Technology). For commerce practitioners, this means loyalty is no longer a direct brand-consumer relationship but increasingly mediated by AI systems, requiring new strategies centered on first-party data and community engagement.
Gale's research surveyed 3,000 consumers in the U.S. and U.K. and projects that 60% to 70% of consumers could instruct large language models to set brand preferences within two to three years (Retail Dive - Technology). Brands that fail to optimize for AI-mediated discovery and preference systems risk being filtered out entirely from consumer consideration.