Accor

AI and Cost Pressures Force Loyalty Program Overhaul

Research from the Australian Loyalty Association (ALA) finds rising consumer price sensitivity and rapid AI adoption are changing expectations for loyalty programs in Australia. The ALA reports that 80% of Australians expect better offers as loyalty members, 72% expect better service, 52% say household budgets are under significant pressure, and 41% have used AI to research purchases in the past year. These findings will frame discussions at the 2026 Asia Pacific Loyalty Conference (28–30 July 2026, JW Marriott Gold Coast Resort & Spa), which will gather industry leaders, feature more than 28 speakers (including Mandy Gallie of Mastercard), and cover topics such as AI, loyalty economics, behavioural science, and customer data strategy. The article positions loyalty as evolving from a rewards program into a broader, AI‑informed business growth strategy.

Contentsquare Unveils AI Tools to Enhance Customer Journey Insights

Contentsquare expanded its experience-intelligence platform with new AI agent and analytics capabilities to track customer journeys across LLMs, ChatGPT apps, web and mobile. The update includes Sense Analyst, a configurable analytics agent that delivers contextualized, scheduled insights and a customizable Newsroom. Contentsquare added visibility into activity inside ChatGPT apps and prompt analytics, new LLM traffic analytics to distinguish AI-driven from human visitors and measure navigation and conversion, and a conversation intelligence solution (powered by its Loris acquisition) that captures support tickets, calls and in-product chats enriched with reviews and social signals. The company also exposed experience data to external AI assistants (Claude, Cursor, Microsoft Copilot) using the Model Context Protocol (MCP). The platform updates were unveiled at CX Circle London.

Greenbids Cuts Carbon in Programmatic Ad Bidding Revolution

Greenbids, a Paris-based startup, is aiming to cut carbon in the programmatic supply chain by treating optimization of ad bidding as an infrastructure problem. Founded in 2022 by Guillaume Grimbert, Adrien Delambre and Jean-Baptiste Pettit, the company built an algorithm that balances media performance with CO2 reduction by ingesting a brand’s historical buying data and emissions data from Scope3 and GARM to generate emissions benchmarks for campaign KPIs. Since launching its advertiser product 18 months ago, Greenbids says it has saved 11,500 tons of carbon. On the seller side, its tools reduce unnecessary bid activity, and a YouTube optimization product launched in mid-February aims to improve when and where ads run; testers report ~41% carbon reduction and ~28% lower cost-per-view across 30 markets. Greenbids counts Magnite, Equativ, DV360 and Xandr among its partners, with a planned integration with The Trade Desk in Q2 and UK expansion underway.