44% of retail executives worldwide expect gen AI to weaken brand loyalty by shifting consumer choice toward value and fit over brand recognition by 2026, according to a January report from Deloitte.

Retail executives are largely aligned on one point: Artificial intelligence is no longer experimental, but is central to how retailers expect to drive growth, improve customer experience, and build more resilient operations.

Even if tariffs ease, their effects on consumer behavior will linger into 2026, redefining how consumers evaluate value, loyalty, and where they spend.

AI shopping assistants are boosting discovery and personalization, but trust issues and fulfillment challenges could limit their impact on channel migration.

The news: Over 40% of US consumers are comfortable with AI managing investments, and 89% are open to new technology, seeing it as trustworthy for financial advice, per a TD Bank survey. However, current AI-driven personal finance management (PFM) tools often lack human oversight, leading to poor or misleading advice, especially for vulnerable users. Our take: FIs should differentiate themselves from fintechs by highlighting the crucial role human expertise still plays in their offerings—making them more trustworthy than their competitors.

Macy’s uses personalized email marketing to drive second purchases, which the company has identified as vital to customer lifetime value. “Getting that next interaction right is an extremely high-value use case [for personalization],” said Bennett Fox-Glassman, senior vice president of customer journey at Macy’s during The Lead Summit last week.

Consumer banking will evolve from a product-centric model to a customer-centric one over the next few years. This will require significant changes to banks’ apps, pricing structures, and customer service.

Automation and AI are enhancing email marketing with improved personalization and efficiency.

GenAI for marketing is gaining momentum: IBM is the latest organization to tout its ability to transform marketing outcomes.

Hyper-personalization has long been an ambition for retailers—and the rise of generative AI means 2024 could be the year implementation accelerates across the industry.

One year on, we review what we got right, what we sort of called, and what we got horribly wrong.

Fintechs scramble to get ahead of the trends that will shape 2022: Industry players focused on meeting heightened consumer expectations will help turn 2022 into another record-breaking year for fintechs.