As we head into what’s sure to be another dynamic year, we’ve prepared a list of the top trends and predictions that we anticipate will be at the forefront for 2025.

2024, as outlined in The Bond Loyalty Report, saw a period focused on optimizing loyalty for maximum impact. Loyalty program enrollment saw record highs, with 19 total memberships per person, and the race for share of wallet has never been more intense as consumers seek greater quality experiences (The Bond Loyalty Report, 2024). Not only were customers seeking ways to better budget in 2024, but simplicity and seamlessness were also key. The top loyalty driver? ‘Makes me feel valued/important’, out of a sample of 20k+ consumers across 360+ programs; in a time of self-checkouts and chatbots, customers want to be seen. Carrying over from last year, undoubtedly, will be the power and influence of loyalty programs, with 85% of members stating that programs make them more likely to continue doing business with brands (The Bond Loyalty Report, 2024). As we enter a new era, it’s clear that the momentum built around loyalty and consumer expectations will only accelerate.

From Customer Experience to AI and Analytics, let’s dive into the trends and shifts that we predict will define 2025:
1 - Zooming Out: The Consumer Loyalty Marketplace in 2025
2 - The Age of Artificial Intelligence
3 - The Loyalty Program in 2025
4 - Analytics' New Age & The Value of Human Expertise
5 - Experience Matters: The CX Commandments 

Zooming Out: The Consumer Loyalty Marketplace in 2025

Maegan O’Neill, VP Strategy & Insights

In the face of ongoing macroeconomic pressures—potential tariffs, rising costs of living, and fluctuating job confidence—consumers are navigating an uncertain economic environment that is influencing the loyalty marketplace. As individuals potentially become more discerning with their spending, businesses will witness notable trends in consumer loyalty behaviors that present opportunities for the brands paying attention.

1. Loyalty Love: Sustained high interest and engagement in loyalty programs as consumers seek to maximize value from their expenditures. In times of financial uncertainty, loyalty programs offer an attractive proposition by providing member discounts, special pricing, and access to trending products. This increased engagement highlights the importance of well-structured loyalty programs that cater to consumers' desires for tangible benefits and exclusive access. Businesses that can effectively communicate and deliver these advantages are likely to see enhanced customer retention and satisfaction.
   
   
2. In-Store Renaissance & Experience Value: The perception of value in loyalty programs means more than mere discounts or points. Consumers will be seeking meaningful interactions and efficient engagement with brands. This shift is driving a resurgence of interest in physical stores, where unique services and personalized experiences can be offered. Retailers and brands must capitalize on this trend by creating seamless, omnichannel experiences that integrate online convenience with the tactile and relational benefits of in-store shopping. By doing so, they can foster deeper emotional connections with their customers.
   
   
3. Lux Loyalty: The luxury sector is increasingly leaning into loyalty as a strategic focus. In an environment where growth pressures are mounting, luxury brands are recognizing the value of nurturing existing customers within all paths to purchase. By transforming one-time shoppers into brand loyalists, luxury brands can cultivate a dedicated customer base that appreciates exclusivity and personalized attention. This approach requires innovative loyalty programs that go beyond traditional models, offering bespoke experiences and rewards that align with the brand's prestige and the customer's expectations.

The Age of Artificial Intelligence 

Kienan McLellan, Director, Analytics & AI Solutions 

Artificial intelligence in 2025 presents a complex interplay of competing forces. On one end, we're seeing an acceleration of AI capabilities from tech giants, with new releases from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, DeepSeek, and others pushing the boundaries of what's possible. On the other end, we have enterprises attempting to translate these capabilities into meaningful business value. This tension is amplified by workforce concerns, as white-collar professionals grapple with AI's increasing sophistication in knowledge work, while simultaneously being tasked with implementing these same technologies. Customers, meanwhile, are sending mixed signals—they’re expressing frustration with poorly implemented AI experiences while simultaneously demanding faster, more personalized service that only AI can practically deliver. Rather than pursuing AI for AI's sake, successful organizations will focus on specific, high-value use cases where AI can demonstrably improve experiences while maintaining authentic brand connections.

1. Agents, AI’s Next Frontier: The race to implement true AI agents is becoming a key strategic initiative for major brands, driven by the promise of more sophisticated customer interactions and operational efficiency. However, many organizations are discovering that creating effective agents requires not just advanced AI models, but extensive, high-quality training data that accurately represents their brand voice, product knowledge, and customer interaction history. Some early attempts will fall short of expectations, leading to a preference toward "agentic workflows" to enhance existing workflows rather than attempting full autonomy. This more measured approach will allow organizations to build the necessary data infrastructure and operational expertise gradually.
   
   
2. Your Chatbot Needs a Personality: Customer fatigue with basic AI chatbots is reaching a critical point, as users increasingly expect more sophisticated and natural interactions. Organizations are being forced to confront the reality that AI personality and interaction style are as crucial to customer satisfaction as technical accuracy and problem-solving capabilities. Leading companies are investing in dedicated teams to design and refine their AI personalities, recognizing that these digital personas are becoming extensions of their brand identity.
   
   
3. AI’s New Dimension, Physical + World Models: The emergence of sophisticated world models, particularly from companies like NVIDIA, is opening new possibilities for brands to create digital twins of their customer environments and interactions. These models offer the potential to simulate and optimize customer experiences in unprecedented detail, from retail store layouts to product interactions. Forward-thinking organizations are already beginning to collect and structure the massive amounts of data required to train these models effectively. This trend will particularly impact industries where the ability to bridge digital and physical experiences is crucial.
   
   

The Loyalty Program in 2025

Joelle Elfassy, Director, Consulting

Loyalty programs are also being impacted by the latest trends and behaviors. Brands are investing more resources into optimizing their loyalty initiatives, not just to retain customers but to drive significant ROI. Let’s zoom in to look at what will shape the future of loyalty programs specifically:

1. ROI Revolution & Strategic Optimization: Brands are enhancing their loyalty programs to boost their value proposition and drive higher ROI. This involves creating balanced rewards that deeply resonate with customers, ensuring programs engage rather than just retain. A crucial aspect is integrating these programs with customer experience (CX) by aligning rewards with customer behaviors and important moments, fostering ongoing engagement. 
   
   Strategic partnerships are key in expanding reward options and offering varied experiential opportunities. These partnerships allow brands to share resources, customer bases, and data, creating innovative value propositions. This focus on optimization is not just about improving satisfaction—it's also a response to digital growth, globalization, and partnership cost-effectiveness. By pooling resources, brands can deliver more value to customers, ultimately driving better ROI.
   
   
2. The Omnichannel Imperative: In 2025, seamless omnichannel integration will be table stakes, not a luxury. Customers now expect a unified experience across all touchpoints, whether they are shopping online, through mobile apps, or in-store. This expectation requires brands to invest in technology upgrades, robust analytics, and data intelligence that enable real-time and personalized experiences across channels.
   
   
3. Hyper-Personalization is Here to Stay: Hyper-personalization is set to become a cornerstone of loyalty program strategies by 2025. As data analytics and artificial intelligence continue to advance, brands are focusing on leveraging these technologies to deliver highly personalized experiences that cater to individual customer preferences and behaviors, in real-time. Brands are investing in advanced analytics to make real-time decisions, allowing them to tailor offers, rewards, and communications to each customer and quickly measure and evolve their program faster than ever before. This level of personalization goes beyond traditional segmentation, addressing the unique needs and desires of each customer individually.
   
   

Analytics' New Age & The Value of Human Expertise

Francis Silva, EVP, Digital & AI

Analytics finds itself at a transformative intersection, shaped by the dual forces of AI advancement and an insatiable appetite for deeper customer understanding. Traditional data science and business intelligence practices are being reimagined as AI takes over many routine analytical tasks, pushing practitioners to evolve their roles and skill sets. Simultaneously, organizations face mounting pressure to extract more value from their data assets, leading to increased interest in external data partnerships. Success of analytics initiatives will depend on an organization’s ability to balance the promise of AI-powered automation with the need for human expertise.

1. Contextual Layers + Unstructured Data: While traditional structured data remains fundamental, the real competitive advantage is increasingly found in the ability to process and act on unstructured data in real-time. Organizations are developing more sophisticated systems to capture and analyze customer sentiment in service interactions and real-time behavior in digital and physical spaces. The integration of this contextual data with traditional customer profiles is creating richer, more nuanced understanding of customer needs and behaviors.
   
   
2. Data Partnerships to Deepen Customer Knowledge: The push for richer customer understanding is driving organizations beyond their first-party data limitations through strategic data partnerships. These collaborations are taking multiple forms, from direct integrations with financial data aggregators to sophisticated data clean room implementations that enable privacy-safe data sharing across industries. While these partnerships won't provide complete coverage of all customers, the depth of insight that they offer for matched customers is proving valuable enough to justify the investment.
   
   

3. Beyond Numbers, The New Age Analyst: The democratization of data access through AI-powered interfaces is fundamentally reshaping the role of business intelligence analysts in loyalty as the traditional boundaries between business users and data teams become increasingly fluid. As tools such as Snowflake Cortex Analyst and other AI-enabled platforms make basic data querying accessible to business users, analysts are being pushed to evolve beyond traditional report writing and basic SQL queries. This shift is requiring Business Intelligence (BI) professionals to develop new skills in areas, including prompt engineering, data architecture, and advanced statistical analysis, while also becoming more strategic partners in business decision-making.

Experience Matters: The CX Commandments

Carrie Bradley, VP, Human Experience Design

As consumer expectations irrevocably and continuously shift, there is something to be said for an experience that is, at its core, positive. Our last best experience becomes our new expectation moving forward, regardless of sector. There is an absolute urgency for CX consistency and getting back to basics. Getting the basics right and ensuring excellence at every touchpoint in the customer journey fosters and maintains trust. Consumers crave consistency above all else; the rest will follow.

1. CX Leaders & Org-Specific Intentionality: The role of Customer Experience (CX) professionals is being redefined, and more is being asked of organizations and how they show up for their customers. As CX evolves, it’s crucial for organizations to rethink their approach with deliberate focus. Elevating CX to the C-suite, such as appointing a Chief Experience Officer (CXO), ensures that the customer experience becomes a strategic priority. This role champions customer-centric strategies and aligns them with overall business goals.
   
   Why is this necessary? The current models often place CX professionals under the COO, or a variety of spaces that isolate them as a small team trying to influence large change from the sidelines. By integrating and embedding CX professionals within each function, organizations can drive strategic, meaningful, customer-focused innovation and change. This approach ensures that every part of the organization prioritizes customer satisfaction, creating both a customer-centric and seamless experience across all touchpoints.
   
   
2. The AI + Human Experience Equation: AI entering the conversation has made it increasingly difficult for organizations to navigate complexities in wanting to win on efficiencies while also delivering on consumer needs to enable unique and personable human connections. The approach to win in this new space is ensuring that human connection is the foundation of a winning AI strategy. The ability to distinguish where and when AI can enhance vs. detract from an experience is key to optimizing both digital and human capabilities. CX is ripe for innovation, creating a moment to leverage AI capabilities to innovate by delivering complex and elevated experiences by optimizing across both human touch and digital capabilities.
   
   
3. Back to Basics... & Consistency: The importance of a consistent and fundamentally positive customer experience cannot be overstated. This return to basics is essential for fostering trust and loyalty among consumers. Consistency in customer experience begins with ensuring that every touchpoint, from initial contact to post-purchase, is aligned with a company's values and promises. Consistency builds trust, as consumers come to rely on the predictability of their interactions with a brand. When customers know they can expect a certain level of service or quality, they are more likely to return and recommend the brand to others. From having well-defined processes to well-trained employees who embody a brand's commitment to customer satisfaction, customers want to receive a high level of service, and the brands who have a strong foundation will adapt and evolve best. While innovation and technological advancements are important, the true essence of a successful customer experience lies in its consistency, ultimately driving long-term success.
   
   

The Loyalty Helm: Balancing Innovation with Human Connection in 2025

As we sail into 2025, it's clear that the winds of change are steering the loyalty ship into uncharted waters. Brands must buckle up and embrace the transformative currents of technology, personalization, customer experience, and seamless integration. The stakes are high, but so are the rewards for those who can captivate consumers with authentic, engaging experiences.

It's no longer just about collecting points; it's about creating meaningful moments that resonate with today's discerning customers. In this brave new world of loyalty, the brands that can deftly balance AI innovation with genuine human connection will not only survive, but thrive, carving out their place as captains of customer loyalty.

Interested in learning more about how our Loyalty experts can help you create or enhance a loyalty program that fosters trust and connection? We’d love to chat—email us at info@bondbl.com.