Loyalty Circle London asked senior leaders what happens when AI agents do the shopping
On 14 October, Comarch Loyalty brought senior loyalty leaders to KOL, a one-Michelin-star restaurant in London, for a lunch that was built around one question: what does your program look like to a member who isn't human?
After São Paulo, the Loyalty Circle series made its next stop in London. The theme was "Upgrading to Unstoppable AI". The setting was KOL on Seymour Street.
The conversation was candid, and more than one guest left saying "I'm taking that back to my team."
Who sat around the table
Loyalty Circle is built on one idea: small groups, senior people, no sales pitch. In London, around the table sat leaders from major UK and international brands, joined by seasoned loyalty executive. Retail, banking, telecoms, hospitality, travel and sport, all in one room, all asking the same question: where does AI actually pay off in loyalty?
The conversation was led by Hunter Murray and Philip Shelper of Loyalty & Reward Co, the global loyalty consultancy, together with Łukasz Dubiel, Consulting Director, Loyalty Solutions at Comarch Loyalty. Comarch Loyalty was also represented by Tsvetozar Aleksandrov, Loyalty & Customer Experience Strategy Advisor, and Edward Swain, VP Sales, Central, Eastern & Northern Europe.
Three waves of AI, and one uncomfortable gap
The discussion opened with a simple frame: AI in loyalty has arrived in three waves. Rule-based segmentation. Predictive machine learning. And now generative and agentic AI. None of them replaced the one before. The best programs in 2026 run all three, and the skill is in picking the right one for each problem.
Then the room took on four questions:
- Adoption is almost universal, but still shallow. Why do most programs stop at content creation, and what does it take to go deeper?
- Why do investments in data foundations so often deliver better returns than investments in AI itself?
- What can we learn from brands already using predictive AI for communications, personalization, pricing and next best action?
- Can AI be taught to show empathy, and know when not to send the offer?
The room agreed on one thing: whether to use AI is settled. Where it sits, who owns it and how it is governed are not.
Your next member may not be a person
Then came the question that got the room talking the loudest. What happens when your members stop shopping and start delegating?
New personal AI agents can already browse, compare and buy on a customer's behalf. Accenture's January 2026 survey of more than 25,000 consumers found that around three in four are open to the idea, as long as they stay in control. Which means you can lose the sale before the human ever presses "buy", simply because your program never made the agent's shortlist.
Together we explored:
- Which traditional loyalty mechanics weaken when an agent makes the choice, from gamification to breakage-led design?
- How can brands stay findable, readable, trusted, actionable and preferred in the eyes of an AI agent?
- How do you design one program for two audiences, the human member and the AI agent?
- Will platforms capture the customer relationship, and how can a consented, first-party loyalty relationship become a brand's best defence?
The takeaway: keep the human experience rich, and build a clean, machine-readable value layer underneath it. The loyalty account may soon be the best way to tell an authorised agent acting for a known member from an anonymous bot.
The conversation carried on through lunch and coffee
The format was simple: a short expert-led session, a long lunch with plenty of networking, and a closing coffee. It got a little provocative at times, which is exactly what we wanted.
The Circle keeps turning
London followed São Paulo, and Loyalty Circle keeps moving to new cities with the same format: a small table of senior loyalty people and an honest conversation.
Want to be part of the next conversation? Find a Loyalty Circle event near you and secure your seat: https://info.comarch.com/loyalty-circle
A big thank you to everyone who joined us in London, and to our friends at Loyalty & Reward Co for sharing their expertise.
Łukasz Dubiel, Consulting Director, Loyalty Solutions
https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukasz-dubiel/
