Steven Bocska provides a rebuttal to Denis Huré

Editor’s Note:

The launch of the Google AI Shopping Assistant inspired Steve Bocska, CEO PUG Interactive, to investigate the potential impact of that tool on the fortunes of retailers. We published Steve’s thoughts on how brand and customer loyalty could be disrupted by this new tool in a three-part series.

Denis Huré, Founder & CEO, Reward the World™ responded with a passionate alternative view in this article Loyalty Isn’t Dead—AI is Its Greatest Opportunity Yet and today we share a response to several key points made in Denis Huré’s rebuttal to Steve’s original series Loyalty Is Dead. Google Just Killed It..

The debate is worthy of your time and grey matter. We see wisdom in areas of each viewpoint here but have to say that the future of loyalty lies somewhere in between the views of these two industry authorities.

The next step in this debate may be to bring Steve and Denis together in a live debate. We are working on that and hope to publish details of a live video event soon. Call it a “loyalty cage match.” The debate will be fierce and we hope that we all become a bit wiser in our views on the future of this growing industry as a result.

Stay. Loyal. Always.

Counterpoint: Yes, Loyalty Really Is Dead. The Emperor Has No Points.

I’ve often noticed that during times of disruption, there are those clinging to the comfort of tradition, hoping the chaos will pass without consequence. And then there are those with the courage to say what needs to be said, even if it defies popular wisdom.

This moment is too important and disruptive to allow outdated thinking to go unchallenged. I see a major tectonic shift approaching in the way customer relationships will be created, maintained, and valued. And if we stubbornly view the world through a straw or misread the threat, we risk becoming irrelevant.

I. ‘Loyalty Isn’t Dead — It’s Growing.’

Denis’s article cites industry forecasts that estimate loyalty marketing will reach $24 billion by 2029. That may even be true, but it is also misleading to point to this as a positive sign. Growth in loyalty spending does not imply growth in loyalty effectiveness. In fact, when loyalty becomes harder to win, brands often spend more to compensate. The result? More budget, same (or worse) results. And ironically, the very in his article predicts that loyalty program “growth” will slow in the years ahead. I do agree with this. I just predict it’s just going to happen faster and more dramatically than his chart dares to admit.

A sidenote, one of the unfortunate aspects of Denis’s article is his use of graphs and statistics without cited sources. This may have been inadvertent. But it does lead me to suspect that all the projections referenced were forecast prior to the very recent (and unexpected, to most analysts) updates to Google’s Shopping Assistant and its early proliferation — a development that is currently in the process of fundamentally reshaping the buying journey in ways that few would have predicted. In that case, his view is supported by outdated data that describes a world that no longer exists.

II. From Searching to Screening: The Moment Loyalty Loses Its Grip

Denis’s rebuttal also suggests the continued dominance of Google searches over AI assistants is evidence against my claims. This overlooks a crucial reality of customer psychology: the cognitive transition that takes place when shifting from initial searching, to screening, to actually transacting.

A Google search is the preliminary exploration phase for a customer. They are curious, comparing, and in control. But soon enough, that same customer will soon turn to an AI assistant to take over the exhausting analysis required to thoroughly evaluate the options and making a final purchase decision. The moment they have enough clarity to ask, “What’s the best running shoe?” or “Book me the cheapest flight,” they’re outsourcing the decision and eroding the equity value your loyalty program once had.

This shift isn’t hypothetical in the context of AI — it’s already visible in how people use tools like GPTs. The prompt is just the starting line. The assistant then races ahead and finishes the job. Users aren’t even co-creating at this point. Instead, they’re relinquishing authorship.

Loyalty doesn’t die at the point of sale. It dies when the customer stops remembering why your brand mattered in the first place.

III. Multi-Program Non-Loyalty and Switching Cost Erosion

The article also argues that loyalty programs create powerful and effective switching costs through perks, points, and status. But these enticements dramatically lose their effectiveness once the customer becomes loyal to more than one program within a given category. The moment that happens, the so-called “protective moat” disappears.

Case in point: I was once fiercely loyal to Subway’s old Sub Club program. Remember those cute, easily counterfeited little paper stamps? I sure do. Nobody else had them, and the sheer novelty of it drew me back to my local Sandwich Artist, again and again. But then along came the digital era, with myriad flashy loyalty apps just a tap away. I quickly found myself enrolled in programs from Quizno’s, McDonald’s, Burger King, Wendy’s and more. Now I carry dozens of indistinguishable fast food loyalty programs in my pocket. And if I’m really craving a delicious, hot, juicy Triple Baconator™ today? I assure you that it will take a lot more than shallow point-based persuasion to redirect me to Subway for a cold, sad 6” BMT.

Naturally, brands try to counter this fragmentation by sweetening the pot through all kinds of schemes — escalating discounts, bonuses, or limited-time offers to win attention. But that quickly devolves into an economic race to the bottom. At that point, you might as well be handing out digital coupons on a street corner.

AI assistants will only accelerate this flattening. They don’t “honor” brand loyalty — they optimize for availability, relevance, and instant gratification. And when customers have multiple memberships, the assistant treats those programs not as emotional connections, but as cold inputs into a decision engine.

True loyalty is exclusive. But today’s consumers aren’t. And neither are their AI assistants.

IV. ‘AI is Not the Assassin — It’s the Accelerator.’

Denis’s framing assumes AI is here to help brands. But the reality is more sobering. AI assistants like Google’s Gemini are not loyalty enablers. They are loyalty intermediaries, introducing distance between the customer and the brand. These assistants answer the question on behalf ofthe customer, often without even surfacing brand options. The AI is not an enhancement to your program. It introduces complexity into the relationship with its own logic, preferences, and profit motives.

More importantly, Denis’s argument here fails to answer (or even acknowledge) the critical question I originally posed: Who does the AI work for?

V. ‘Loyalty Is Just Evolving — AI Is the Next Step.’

This view is the most conceptually flawed and dangerous to adopt. Third-party AI assistants such as Google’s are not part of your loyalty stack. They are an entirely new layer of abstraction that disintermediates the brand. In prior loyalty evolutions, the brand retained the relationship. Now, it risks being reduced to metadata.

We’ve seen this story before, too. It wasn’t “evolution” when iTunes displaced record stores, when Amazon turned branded products into algorithmic suggestions, when Google Search made travel agents irrelevant, or when Netflix quietly erased Blockbuster. These were new layers of third-party control that effectively disintermediated legacy players overnight. AI assistants are the next platform in that lineage, poised not to evolve your loyalty stack, but instead to absorb it.

VI. ‘Brands Should Integrate AI and Embrace It.’

It’s not that simple. Google’s assistant does not merely integrate with your program. It subsumes it, leaving you a helpless bystander. There’s no API where you get to control how and when your offer appears. You don’t own the algorithm, and increasingly, you don’t own the interface. You are just another data point fighting helplessly for visibility inside a machine built by someone else.

VII. Final Word: Find the Right Battlefield

Respectfully, Denis’s view appears rooted in tradition. Mine is rooted in what’s actually happening all around us as AI quietly transforms business. We’re not watching transactional brand loyalty grow because of AI. We’re about to see it get bypassed and kicked to the roadside. If brands continue to measure success by dashboards instead of decision journeys and engagement pathways, they’ll miss the shift entirely.

One other thing often missed in this debate: our fixation on the transaction itself. The point-of-sale is no longer the most meaningful, or even practical, touchpoint for tracking, influencing, and building customer loyalty. Brands must take a more direct path to the customer’s heart. This begins, of course, with delivering an exceptional product or service. But from there, loyalty cannot be sustained by a thin layer of points or discounts. It must be earned through sustained engagement, emotional resonance, compelling narrative, and even gamified experiences that create a genuine sense of belonging. That’s how you go beyond transactions to build a reciprocal relationship.

The good news is that we already have the tools to meet this moment. There are platforms that can orchestrate relationships across all customer touchpoints. This includes our very own Picnic platform, 15 years in the making and built upon the same motivational psychology principles that have driven deep engagement in the $300 billion video game industry for decades. These technologies are built precisely for the transformation we are seeing today, enabling persistent, meaningful engagement that transcends the checkout screen. If we let go of our old assumptions and embrace this richer model of loyalty, there’s still time to write a better ending to this story.