Many retailers admit their customer loyalty systems are not ready for the AI era, HyperFinity research
While retailers increasingly expect AI to transform customer loyalty, many admit they lack the foundations to make the shift, according to research released by HyperFinity. Only 29% say their loyalty systems are fully prepared for agentic AI deployment, while 72% admit they are not yet fully ready.
200 Chief Customer Officers, Chief Data Officers, E-commerce Directors, Insight Leaders in the retail sector were surveyed for this.
54% feel that AI's biggest impact on customer loyalty over the next two to three years will come from speeding up customer insight and decision making through intelligent agents. Rather than replacing existing loyalty initiatives, AI is expected to accelerate how retailers understand customers, identify opportunities and respond to changing behaviours.
44% of retailers believe AI will enable one to one personalised engagement at scale, creating opportunities to move beyond broad customer groups and towards truly individual experiences. Four in ten says it will reduce the need for human analysts, allowing teams to focus less on producing reports and more on making strategic commercial decisions.
Retailers increasingly see loyalty as one of the first functions to benefit from agentic AI. One third identify loyalty and CRM among the first retail functions likely to adopt agentic AI, signalling a move towards systems that can proactively identify opportunities and recommend actions.
Thomas Hill, Co-founder at HyperFinity, says: “The real opportunity isn't simply automating retail processes, it’s optimising retail decisions. AI will increasingly handle routine operational choices, while humans focus on complex commercial judgement supported by AI driven recommendations. What's also becoming clear is that personalised offers - not dynamic pricing - are the next battleground for loyalty. Dynamic pricing risks the kind of trust erosion that alienates customers; personalisation does the opposite, making customers feel understood rather than exploited. Agentic AI is what finally makes that possible at scale.”
“We're moving beyond a world where loyalty teams spend weeks producing reports to explain what happened. Agentic AI will allow retailers to understand what's happening in real- time, identify opportunities and activate personalised experiences at a scale that simply wasn't possible before.”
2026 RTIH Innovation Awards
Agentic AI will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.
The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.
Check out our 2025 winners here.
Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.
In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”
“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”
He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”
Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.
