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With GAI Agents Approaching, Loyalty Programs Will Be More Important Than Ever For B2C Travel Brands

Writer's picture: George RoukasGeorge Roukas

Updated: Oct 3, 2024

Remember, if you can, what commerce was like before the internet: slow, opaque, and manual. The internet introduced us to a new, digital channel and gave rise to powerful, internet native companies.


Now another digital channel is emerging: the agentic channel, and it will have its own dramatic impact on e-commerce. But its ascent, driven by Generative AI, or GAI, will be far faster than that of the internet.


Apple Intelligence is an example of an on-device (meaning that it lives on your iPhone, iPad, or Mac as opposed to in the cloud) GAI Agent that’s able to do things from performing simple tasks to (in the case of travel) creating highly personalized itineraries. It creates those recommended itineraries based on information it stores in an on-device database we’ll refer to as a personal graph. The graph is a distillation of information Apple Intelligence is able to glean about your travel preferences from your emails, web browsing history, messages, files, etc.


If you’re a visual thinker, this graphic may help.


An important consideration for brands is that the agentic channel isn’t on the web or in apps, so it isn’t influenced by in-app or web advertising. It can also bypass the web and traditional apps for travel search and booking entirely, which means it’s a brand new playing field for approaching travelers.


So how can companies position themselves for success in the agentic channel? By creating positive interactions with their customers and reducing the negative ones. Remember that Apple Intelligence is looking across the information on the device for clues to which companies and brands the traveler prefers. Positive interactions are things like completed bookings, positive sounding email and text interactions, files with itineraries, etc. Negative interactions might include disputes and complaints in email as well as emails from a brand that the traveler moves to junk mail.


To succeed in the agentic channel, travel companies must create more of those positive interactions with customers and reduce the negative ones, and one powerful way to do that is through loyalty programs and personalization. Loyalty programs can provide a framework and conduit for positive customer interactions and personalization is the engine that shapes those positive interactions and builds loyalty to a company or brand.


Apple is betting that personalization via the personal graph will foster significantly greater customer satisfaction in the agentic channel. Let’s hope travel companies take note!



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