Loyalty leaders have more technology at their disposal than ever before. AI can personalize customer interactions at scale, increasingly sophisticated data can help brands understand individual purchasing behavior, and emerging capabilities such as agentic commerce are beginning to change how consumers discover value and make decisions.
The challenge is determining where those capabilities can actually make a difference. Adding another platform or pursuing the latest technology will have limited impact if customer data remains fragmented, rewards arrive too late to influence behavior, or brands cannot connect program activity to measurable business outcomes.
Loyalty360 asked leaders from FIS and ITA Group where loyalty technology is falling short today, which capabilities are becoming true differentiators, and how brands can build a technology roadmap that prepares them for what comes next.
Contributors
- Mladen Vladic, Head of Product, Payment Networks, FIS
- Justin Bowser, Director - Product Development, ITA Group
Identifying the Technology Gaps Holding Loyalty Programs Back
As loyalty programs become more sophisticated, technology gaps can limit brands’ ability to deliver relevant experiences and understand what is actually driving results. Contributors pointed to two key challenges: access to detailed customer data and the ability to effectively measure performance.
“In my experience the gap is becoming less about engagement than about timing,” said Mladen Vladic, Head of Product, Payment Networks at FIS.
“Traditional systems show you transaction-level signals; where someone shopped, how much they spent, but they don't give you the item-level view, the line-by-line detail of what actually went in the basket. Without that, you're stuck applying broad offers against total spend instead of delivering precise value on the individual item,” he added.
The issue is not simply how much data a brand has, but whether that data allows the organization to understand customer behavior and respond while the value is still relevant. When rewards and offers are disconnected from the purchase they are intended to influence, even a well-designed loyalty strategy can lose some of its impact.
While more granular data can help brands improve relevance, having the right measurement framework is equally important.
“No program can reach its full potential if its performance isn’t being measured,” said Justin Bowser, Director - Product Development at ITA Group. “Set up the right measurement framework, then invest time in designing and executing a test-and-learn strategy. Ask yourself – what did you learn last week, and what insights did those learnings enable you to take back to the business to improve and accelerate your outcomes?”
For brands assessing their own technology gaps, the starting point may be less complicated than a full technology audit. Loyalty leaders can examine how quickly their teams can launch targeted offers and then determine whether rewards reach customers at the right point in the journey, and whether they can clearly connect these efforts to business outcomes. Those questions can reveal where disconnected data, systems, or measurement are limiting the program.
The Technology Capabilities Defining Modern Loyalty
As loyalty technology becomes more sophisticated, capabilities that once set programs apart are quickly becoming expected by customers. Personalization at scale is one example. AI has made it possible for brands to generate offers, communications, and targeting across increasingly large customer bases, raising the baseline for what customers expect from loyalty programs.
That shift also changes where differentiation comes from. If every brand has access to similar AI-powered capabilities, simply using AI is unlikely to create a lasting advantage. Instead, Bowser believes brands will need to become more intentional about when automation improves the experience and when human judgment or interaction can add greater value.
“The true differentiator is a team that understands where and how to use AI, and where to complement that with HI (human intelligence),” said Bowser.
At the same time, delivering more meaningful personalization requires brands to improve the intelligence behind those interactions. Vladic points to item-level data as an emerging capability that can give loyalty programs a much more detailed understanding of customer behavior. Rather than knowing only how much a customer spent at a retailer, brands can understand which products made up that purchase and use those insights to make offers more precise.
“Where I see genuine differentiation is item-level intelligence, a digital receipt view of exactly what someone is buying, line by line,” said Vladic. “That capability is what lets you tie an offer to a specific product, reward the exact behaviors you care about, and move beyond the generic coupon to something that actually feels personal.”
Item-level visibility is not yet universal, however, making it important for brands to build toward that level of precision rather than wait for perfect data. Vladic recommends starting with transaction-level signals that are already broadly available and expanding into item-level intelligence as merchant integrations and data access improve.
The opportunity, then, is not simply to personalize more; it is to personalize with greater precision and purpose. As AI makes personalization easier to scale, differentiation will increasingly depend on the quality of the intelligence informing those experiences and how thoughtfully brands use it.
Preparing the Loyalty Tech Stack for What’s Next
With new capabilities emerging quickly, building a future-ready loyalty technology ecosystem does not mean trying to adopt everything at once. Contributors instead emphasized creating a strong foundation, identifying where technology can make a meaningful difference, and expanding from there.
For Bowser, that begins with the customer experience rather than the technology itself. Brands need to understand the moments that matter to customers and determine what will genuinely make those interactions better. In some cases, technology may enable greater personalization or convenience. In others, human interaction may create a more memorable experience.
“[Find]ways to exceed customer expectations in the moments that matter – whether that's through digital technologies or a simple, handwritten note,” said Bowser.
That requires alignment beyond the loyalty team. Marketing, technology, customer experience, operations, and other areas of the business need a shared understanding of customer needs and the outcomes the organization is trying to achieve. Without that alignment, even sophisticated technology can become another disconnected tool rather than an enabler of the broader customer strategy.
Vladic similarly recommends a measured approach to modernization. Rather than replacing existing systems simply because newer technology is available, brands should first strengthen their data foundation and determine which capabilities can generate meaningful returns.
“Start with your data,” Vladic said. “Before you chase AI models or new platforms, clean and consolidate what you have. AI is only as good as the data feeding it, and a lot of organizations have more data than they think – it's just fragmented.”
From there, brands can prioritize one or two use cases where technology can deliver value closer to the moment of decision, measure the results, and expand what works. Partnerships can also help organizations add capabilities without rebuilding their entire technology ecosystem, particularly when innovation requires coordination across issuers, merchants, brands, and technology providers.
The result is a more practical approach to modernization: preserve what customers already understand and value, address the gaps that are limiting performance today, and create enough flexibility to incorporate new capabilities as customer expectations and technology continue to evolve.
Building for Adaptability, Not Just the Next Technology
The next several years will bring capabilities that loyalty leaders cannot fully anticipate today. AI will become more embedded in customer interactions, data will become increasingly granular, and new models such as agentic commerce may change how customers discover offers and make purchasing decisions.
That makes adaptability just as important as any individual technology investment.
The perspectives from FIS and ITA Group point to a common starting point: get the fundamentals right. Connected data, meaningful measurement, organizational alignment, and a clear understanding of the customer experience give brands a foundation they can continue building on as new opportunities emerge.
For loyalty leaders, the goal should not be to create the most technologically sophisticated program. It should be to build an ecosystem capable of turning technology into better customer experiences and measurable business value. Brands that can do that while continuing to test, learn, and evolve will be better positioned to take advantage of whatever comes next.