Customer loyalty has become increasingly fragile. A single disappointment can now be enough to trigger churn. Yet consumers expect fast, seamless and personalised experiences across an ever-growing number of touchpoints, while AI is reshaping how they discover and interact with brands. In many cases it has already removed the need for direct engagement altogether.
For media, entertainment, gaming and sports (MEGS) brands, that raises the stakes. Increasingly, competitive advantage will depend not simply on winning attention, but on building stronger, longer-lasting customer relationships.
Some organisations are already demonstrating what that looks like. US streaming platform Peacock used the Braze customer engagement platform to create personalised year-end viewing summaries alongside tailored recommendations for what to watch next. The campaign reduced user churn by 20% and increased upgrades from free to premium subscriptions by 6%.
The shift comes as AI transforms customer engagement at pace. The Braze 2026 Customer Engagement Review found that 46% of consumers are already using AI intermediaries such as ChatGPT to interact with brands, or expect to do so by the end of the year. It represents arguably the biggest change in customer engagement since the rise of social media advertising nearly two decades ago.
Rethinking engagement
Historically, MEGS brands have focused much of their investment on attracting new customers. But as acquisition becomes more expensive and attention more fragmented, deepening relationships with existing audiences has become a strategic priority.
“MEGS brands have relied on building the big moment – launching a new show, promoting a movie premiere, a game over the weekend,” says Andrew Quicho, industry marketing lead at customer engagement platform Braze.
Brands assumed that attention would turn into loyalty. But that doesn’t work as well anymore
“Brands assumed that attention would turn into loyalty. But that doesn’t work as well anymore. The big moment still generates attention, but what happens between those moments is what tests the relationship.”
That shift requires brands to rethink how they measure success.
“Traditional metrics, such as likes, clicks and conversions are still useful, but they can be misleading,” says Quicho. “A big sporting event or premiere could create a spike in engagement, but these moments don’t tell you whether your relationship has any depth.”
Instead, brands are increasingly looking at measures such as lifetime value and longer-term engagement patterns. Do fans return once the season ends? Do subscribers stay after the latest release? How do customers respond following a price increase? Rather than treating these as quarterly reporting metrics, leading organisations use them as continuous signals of relationship strength.
The brand-customer value exchange
Peacock’s success illustrates another important lesson: customers are more willing to share first-party data when they receive clear value in return.
That’s proving harder than many organisations expect. The Braze 2026 Customer Engagement Review found that while 93% of brands believe AI is helping them understand what customers want, only 53% of consumers feel brands actually understand or can anticipate their needs.
That perception gap risks eroding trust. When experiences feel generic or irrelevant, customers become less willing to share their data in the future.
“Brands need to be able to provide value straight away and make it obvious,” says Quicho. “If a customer gives a brand their information, what do they get back? Is it a better recommendation? Is it a more relevant offer? Is it a message that arrives while they still care? Is it a moment that makes the relationship feel more personal instead of generic?”
For brands that get this balance right, first-party data becomes less about collection and more about creating experiences customers actively value.
Using AI to create human experiences
German streaming platform RTL+ offers another example. Using Braze AI Agent Console™, the business analyses more than 20 customer data points for every user before delivering personalised onboarding, retention and win-back campaigns based on individual behaviour. The result was a 21% increase in watch engagement and a 40% uplift in message open rates.
For Quicho, the technology succeeds because it supports relationships rather than replacing them.
Customers don’t think in channels; brands do
“We tell our customers to see AI as the infrastructure, not a substitute for the relationship,” says Quicho. “AI can help you to decide who to reach, when to reach them, what channel to use and what message or offer makes sense. But humans still need to own the judgement, the creative direction, brand voice, and guardrails.”
AI also has an important role to play behind the scenes by breaking down the data silos that prevent brands from seeing the full picture. As organisations add more customer touchpoints, the challenge becomes creating one consistent relationship across every interaction.
“Customers don’t think in channels; brands do,” says Quicho. “People experience one relationship. If one channel recognises them and another treats them like a stranger, it creates friction. Usually that’s because the systems behind those experiences aren’t connected.”
A modern customer engagement platform can bring those interactions together, helping brands build a unified view of each customer while delivering more consistent, relevant experiences across every touchpoint.
As competition for attention intensifies, the brands most likely to earn lasting loyalty will be those that use AI not simply to automate engagement, but to better understand their customers and make every interaction feel more valuable.
Customer loyalty has become increasingly fragile. A single disappointment can now be enough to trigger churn. Yet consumers expect fast, seamless and personalised experiences across an ever-growing number of touchpoints, while AI is reshaping how they discover and interact with brands. In many cases it has already removed the need for direct engagement altogether.
For media, entertainment, gaming and sports (MEGS) brands, that raises the stakes. Increasingly, competitive advantage will depend not simply on winning attention, but on building stronger, longer-lasting customer relationships.
Some organisations are already demonstrating what that looks like. US streaming platform Peacock used the Braze customer engagement platform to create personalised year-end viewing summaries alongside tailored recommendations for what to watch next. The campaign reduced user churn by 20% and increased upgrades from free to premium subscriptions by 6%.
