There's a number that should stop every CRM and loyalty team in its tracks right now. Shopping searches on AI platforms grew +4,700% in a single year.

According to BoF McKinsey, more than half of US consumers who used AI for search also used it to help them shop, with 85% of consumers expressing they had a better experience than through traditional methods. That's not a trend on the horizon, it's already the reality your customers are living in.

The finding that changes everything

Buried inside the data is a line that deserves far more attention than it's getting: "Brand loyalty will become even more important in purchase decisions."

Those working in CRM and loyalty have been making this case for years, long before AI entered the picture. What AI has done is change the stakes entirely, because when an AI agent is influencing or making a purchase decision, the emotional relationship a customer already holds with a brand becomes one of the primary search filters. How a brand has made them feel. Whether they've built something genuinely valuable together. Whether the customer has been made to feel known and understood, not just targeted.

When an AI agent is making a purchase decision, the emotional relationship a customer holds with a brand becomes one of the primary search filters.

Personalisation is no longer just good practice!

Think about how AI shopping works. A customer asks for a recommendation. The model weighs up options: price, availability, reviews. Increasingly, brand affinity and emotional resonance are becoming part of that weighting. A customer who already has a strong relationship with a brand is far more likely to see it surface.

The work CRM teams do every day from personalising communications, deepening relationships, to making customers feel genuinely seen is no longer just a nice-to-have retention strategy, it's becoming the mechanism by which a brand stays visible in an AI-mediated world. Get it wrong, and an AI agent will pass you over for a competitor who got it right.

What this means for you right now

The brands that will win are those who prioritise the quiet, consistent work of building real customer relationships. They'll understand their customers deeply, communicate in ways that feel personal rather than programmatic, and create experiences that leave people feeling valued.

That work was always worth doing. Now it's also commercially critical in a way that's very hard to ignore.

The question for CRM, Loyalty & Digital leaders is whether your program and team investment is building the kind of relationships that will make your brand the obvious choice to a customer, and to the AI helping them decide.