The 2026 Braze Customer Engagement Review: AI Innovation Meets the Trust Plateau

Agentic Commerce Poised to Accelerate; Marketers Fear Losing Direct Relationships as Nearly Half of Surveyed Consumers Expect to Interact with Brands through AI Agents by the end of 2026

Braze, the leading customer engagement platform that empowers brands to Be Absolutely Engaging™, today released its 2026 Global Customer Engagement Review (CER). As artificial intelligence (AI) transitions from a back-office efficiency tool to a front-line customer interface, brands face an existential challenge: maintaining a meaningful connection in an increasingly automated landscape. These survey results reveal a critical “Trust Gap,” exposing a widening expectation divide between what businesses believe AI delivers and what customers actually experience. While 93% of marketing leaders believe AI helps them accurately understand customer needs, only 53% of consumers feel brands are successfully predicting their wants. Additionally, while 60% of these marketers use AI to support personalization across channels, nearly half lack the tools needed to orchestrate coordinated experiences across those channels. This disconnect signals a monumental shift in the competitive landscape, where the brands that prioritize real-time context and human-centric value will be best positioned to outpace the status quo.

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“As AI reshapes the landscape of customer engagement, the rise of agentic commerce can feel like a moment where marketers’ direct customer relationships are slipping away. But this shift likely represents the most significant opportunity for marketers in a generation,” said Astha Malik, Chief Business Officer at Braze. “To succeed in this new frontier, we must stop viewing AI as a standalone tool and start approaching it as a complete ecosystem where predictive analytics, reinforcement learning, and agents work together to deliver experiences that resonate. In times of disruption, the competitive advantage belongs to those who use new technology to connect more deeply with consumers. By centering the human need for value, convenience, and connection while taking a composable approach to data and intelligence, marketers can build loyalty and lay a sustainable foundation for engagement—no matter what the future holds.”

The Rise of AI Agents

A fundamental shift is occurring in how people interact with businesses. The report predicts a near-term future of “bot-to-bot” engagement, where consumers increasingly rely on personal AI agents and large language models (LLMs) to manage their digital lives.

• Doubling Adoption: While only 19% of consumers currently use AI agents for brand interactions, that number is expected to jump to 46% by the end of 2026.
• Generational Leadership: Gen Z is leading this transition into an agent-led world; 64% already feel brands are maintaining a human touch with AI, compared to 46% of consumers overall.
• Strategic Intent: Marketers will need to adapt to this new frontier, with 35% of consumers citing the opportunity to negotiate better deals and discounts as a reason to embrace AI agents.

What this looks like for industries

• Retail: AI-powered fit experts and personalized styling agents, as well as order and delivery management agents
• Financial Services: Personalized finance agents and trading agents that execute trades based on real-time market signals
• Healthcare: Frictionless replenishment agents that handle complex natural language requests to reorder supplies.

The Data Standoff and Consumer Skepticism

The consumer survey findings reveal deep-seated skepticism toward brands’ current AI practices, highlighting the high stakes for data handling:

• The Trust Barrier: 27% of consumers currently refuse to share any data with AI agents, even when promised a superior or more personalized experience. However, the 2026 CER shows that top-performing Braze customers are 30% more likely to use AI to anticipate purchase intent, allowing them to capture demand in real time.
• Privacy Deal-breakers: Data misuse remains the primary threat to customer retention. 43% of consumers state they would stop engaging with a brand entirely if their personal data were misused.

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What Brands Can Do Moving Forward

While the trust gap presents real challenges, the 2026 Customer Engagement Review shows that the financial rewards for brands that prioritize human-centric context are significant. Top-performing brands have moved beyond using AI for simple automation, instead leveraging it to create meaningful exchanges that resonate with consumers. When companies use data to accurately predict and meet customer needs, the result is more than just a transaction; consumers are 30% more likely to stay loyal and 26% more likely to recommend the brand. To succeed today, brands must earn the trust of consumers by proving they understand their unique wants and needs, offering personalized experiences and products that genuinely resonate, rather than adding to the digital noise.

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