Loyalty Summit CXM Amsterdam: Key takeaways from giftmall

On 22 and 23 April 2026, Kate Prokhatska, Co-founder & CEO at giftmall, was part of the Loyalty Summit CXM in Amsterdam. Kate has met many professionals in the industry and has brought you some insights into the state of the loyalty industry in 2026.

Loyalty Summit CXM was all about diving deeper into the loyalty processes and ecosystems our clients are constantly building and evolving, which made for quite an interesting experience. Kate met new colleagues and discussed their strong and inspiring perspectives on the loyalty market.

The speakers covered the following topics during the event:

• AI across the loyalty lifecycle: from how brands speak to customers to how they decide what to offer next and how they keep refining the engine.
• Partnerships that actually pull weight: building loyalty as an ecosystem play, not another isolated programme bolted onto the brand.
• Personalisation as relevance, not surveillance: the right message, the right moment, the right reason to care.
• Winning the next generation: a cohort that reads brands differently, spends differently, and rewards completely different things.
• Designing for “wow”: engineering moments of surprise across the journey, not just at checkout.
• Ecosystem thinking and partnerships: partnering between sectors will create richer value propositions, unlocking relevance, monetisation and differentiation.

A few insights Kate took with her:

1. AI can’t do innovation, only copy someone else’s.
2. Listening to customers through data is important.
3. Personalisation is a tool that helps you stand out.
4. Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
5. What you can’t measure doesn’t exist.
6. Loyalty always comes down to human connection.

It was a true pleasure to be a part of such an extraordinary event. Great conversations, strong energy, and a lot to think about.