Your brand is being filtered out. A seismic shift is fundamentally changing how consumers relate to loyalty, and most brands aren’t built for it.
More than half of AI users have already turned to an AI assistant to help them decide where to shop, what to buy, or which brand to use. And among all respondents, nearly 1 in 3 have gone a step further: deliberately opening an AI assistant — ChatGPT, Gemini, Copilot, and a growing field of others — and telling it which brands to favor above all others. It’s a deliberate hardcoding of their preferences directly into the algorithms that will shape every future recommendation they receive.
Brands that haven't been chosen won't just lose, they won't even be considered; removed from the equation before the decision-making process begins.
To understand this shift, GALE surveyed 3,000 consumers across the United States and United Kingdom, producing “The Preference Economy: Earn True Loyalty or Get Filtered Out” — a study that maps how loyalty is being fundamentally redefined.
Key findings include:
- 56% are comfortable with AI filtering their brand communications entirely, actively inviting an algorithm to decide what's worth their attention.
- 45% plan to set AI brand preferences in the next few years – jumping to 70% when “maybes” are included.
- Nearly a quarter of respondents were completely comfortable with AI learning their preferences, compared to 20% for cookies and just 17% for social media.
- 61% of people aged 25-34 have abandoned a brand they were loyal to for a competitor with a better experience.
Read the full report to learn more.
.jpg)
