Gale’s latest loyalty report is less about points and more about the chatbot now standing between a brand and the person it insists on calling a “relationship.”
In “The Preference Economy,” Gale surveyed 3,000 consumers in the U.S. and U.K. and found that 56% are comfortable delegating all communications with a brand through AI. Nearly one-third have already instructed an assistant to prioritize certain brands over others. Gale CEO Andrew Noel called that “pretty alarming.”
The report frames AI-native loyalty as consumers preloading shortlists into chatbots: four or five acceptable brands, everyone else can wait outside. Roughly a quarter of respondents said they expect to regularly set brand preferences with AI within the next year. Noel predicts that could rise to 60%–70% within two to three years.
This piles onto an already wobbly loyalty landscape. The average consumer is enrolled in four to six loyalty programs, per Gale, but many are “ghost members” who don’t actively participate. Millennials and Gen Z are among the most engaged cohorts, but also quick to leave. Among 25–34-year-olds, 61% dumped a brand for a competitor because of a better loyalty experience, even when the competitor’s rewards were worse.
Gale’s suggested response is not just a new points mechanic. It points to first-party data, community management, and lower-friction experiences as ways to keep brands visible when AI starts filtering the options. That could mean social listening in Discord, surveying shoppers in-store, or finding out what people actually want before addressing them as “Hello, [First Name].”
Prior Gale studies found that nearly 70% of consumers are more likely to join a loyalty program with an active community, while 30% feel more connected to a brand because of the social aspects of its loyalty offering. The catch: budgets are under pressure, consumers are trading down, and loyalty is harder to treat as a one-off discount line item when AI is turning “preference” into something programmable.
Full story at Marketing Dive.