Captivate 2025 Recap: The Loyalty Trends Everyone’s Talking About

Loyalty is evolving—and Captivate 2025 was where the future showed up early. 

Back for its second edition, Captivate, Capillary’s flagship loyalty event, is becoming one of the most anticipated gatherings for loyalty, CX, and AI leaders across the globe.

This year, over 150+ attendees, 60+ global brands, and 100+ Loyalty and CX visionaries came together in Mumbai—the financial capital of India—for two packed days of powerful conversations, breakthrough ideas, and moments that sparked real change.

From retail giants and QSR leaders to airline powerhouses and digital disruptors, the energy in the room was electric. Everyone was here to challenge assumptions, swap strategies, and unlock what’s next.

And if there was one thing that truly delivered? The speaker lineup.

Not just industry names, but change agents. From loyalty design to AI applications that work in the real world, every session was a shot of clarity in a noisy space.

Here’s a look at the moments and mindshifts that made Captivate 2025 the place where loyalty’s next chapter came to life.

1. IndiGo’s loyalty strategy proves timing is as important as technology

Pieter Elbers in conversation with Anant Choubey, COO of Capillary

What does it really take to launch a successful airline loyalty program?

Pieter Elbers, CEO of IndiGo, summed it up in five words at Captivate: “Walk before you run.”

That philosophy shaped the launch of BluChip, IndiGo’s much-anticipated loyalty program. Rather than rushing to roll out rewards, the airline waited until the timing was right. The result? A program built on readiness, not reaction.

BluChip reflects everything the airline stands for: scale, simplicity, and service. With over 2,200 daily flights, IndiGo ranks 7th globally in daily operations, making it one of the world’s true aviation powerhouses. And as India’s largest airline by market share and 6th globally by market cap, BluChip needed to match that scale with substance.

Elbers emphasized that a strong digital foundation was essential before introducing loyalty partnerships or tiered incentives. More than just perks, BluChip is built for real travelers—frequent or not—who expect value, flexibility, and ease. 

2. Scaling AI requires alignment, not just ambition

Rajan Anandan in conversation with Aneesh Reddy, CEO of Capillary

While AI has already started to change the way our lives and businesses function today, Rajan Anandan, MD at Peak XV and angel investor at Capillary, gave us a closer look into reality: many enterprises are still hesitant to dive in. Despite the hype, most are stuck in pilot mode—testing AI in isolated pockets without fully committing.

Having backed some of the country’s most promising AI startups through the Peak XV portfolio, Rajan shared how these younger companies are moving faster and smarter, applying AI to solve real-world problems—from automating workflows to driving hyper-personalized experiences at scale.

In his fireside chat, Pratik Pal, who leads AI and Innovation at Tata Group, built on that point. His message? AI only becomes transformative when it’s embedded end-to-end, not just used to tweak a campaign or optimize a dashboard, but to power the entire enterprise. That’s when it moves from experiment to impact.

The winners won’t be the ones who adopt AI first, but the ones who scale it meaningfully across teams, systems, and the customer journey.

3. The gap between AI hype and real impact is still wide in loyalty marketing

John Pedini during his session the Future of Loyalty Marketing

Forrester’s Principal Loyalty Analyst John Pedini’s session, “Future of Loyalty Programs,” took a clear-eyed look at what’s hype and what’s real in AI, setting the tone for this year’s theme: AI: Hype vs Impact. While excitement around AI is sky-high, Pedini grounded the conversation in reality, pointing to a key insight from Forrester: 51% of CMOs are still struggling to use AI effectively for personalized, dynamic campaigns. The challenge isn’t ambition—it’s the usual suspects: data quality, creative alignment, and trust in automation.

Still, the outlook is optimistic. A striking 90% of CMOs plan to increase AI investments in the coming years, signaling that brands aren’t just curious about AI—they’re counting on it to become central to their loyalty strategy.

Pedini outlined three high-impact areas where AI is set to move from buzzword to business driver:

• Predictive analytics that anticipate customer behavior
• Real-time experience orchestration
• Automated content personalization at scale

The real challenge isn’t the tech—it’s turning potential into practice. And that’s where the future of loyalty will be won.

4. Loyalty isn’t about acquisition—it’s about how many stay engaged

Don Smith during his session

In her session on the “World’s Greatest Loyalty Programs,” Paula Thomas—the voice behind Let’s Talk Loyalty and Loyalty TV—highlighted how brands often lean on familiar KPIs like Net Promoter Score (NPS), Monthly Active Users (MAUs), and 90-day activity rates to track loyalty performance. Useful? Sure. But are they enough?

Don Smith, Capillary’s Chief Consulting Officer, challenged brands to dig deeper—to go beyond surface-level dashboards and start measuring what really drives business impact.

One metric he believes more brands should pay attention to? Retention Velocity. It’s not just about whether customers stick around—it’s about how actively they’re engaging over time. Are they just showing up? Or are they showing interest, again and again?

Don’s message was clear—loyalty success isn’t about quantity, it’s about quality. And when brands start tracking depth, consistency, and progression, not just participation, they move from vanity metrics to real strategic insight. That’s when loyalty programs stop being just programs and start becoming growth engines.

5. Gamification is no longer about play—it’s about purpose

Francesco Onorato explaining Purposive Gamification

Francesco Onorato, Head of Growth at Cataboom, a SaaS company that helps brands to run gamified campaigns, offered a refreshing take on gamification—positioning it not as a layer of entertainment, but as a strategic driver of engagement. His core message? It’s time for brands to shift toward “purposive gamification.”

Instead of relying on generic points or one-off spin-to-win mechanics, leading brands are designing gamified experiences that are backed by behavioral insights and data-driven design. These aren’t just moments of delight—they’re part of a bigger strategy to shape customer behavior and deliver measurable value.

Francesco unpacked several trends that are shaping the next chapter of gamification:

• Next Best Action Analytics will power more personalized, relevant challenges, nudging customers toward meaningful behaviors in real time.
• Habituation Looping will play a key role in driving repeat engagement, especially in win-back and share-shift campaigns.
• Milestone Unlocks are evolving into tiered experiences—progressive games and rewards, often co-created through brand partnerships.
• Redemption Stretchers and Accrual Accelerants will be used more intentionally to extend customer journeys and increase lifetime value.

When done right, it turns casual engagement into consistent action, and consistent action into long-term loyalty.

6. From complexity to clarity—New tools are changing the game

Rohan Mahadar, VP of Product at Capillary

For loyalty teams, the everyday grind is real. Too many tools that don’t talk to each other. Campaigns that take weeks to set up. Customer journeys that feel more reactive than relevant. At Captivate, Capillary’s Product Innovation Showcase gave us a much-needed reality shift—and a glimpse of what loyalty can look like when the tech finally gets out of the way.

The session wasn’t about features for the sake of features. It was about solving the problems that slow teams down and frustrate customers. Whether it’s reducing the time it takes to launch a campaign, getting clearer insights faster, or making sure your message actually reaches the customer, it’s all being reimagined.

Capillary’s latest innovations are designed to do exactly that: simplify the complex, speed up the slow, and empower the people behind the program. No more jumping through hoops. No more relying on IT for every small change. Just smarter, cleaner, more intuitive ways to run loyalty the way it should work.

We Are Just Getting Started

AI: From Hype to Impact wasn’t just a theme at Captivate 2025—it was a challenge. A challenge to move beyond buzzwords, break down silos, and finally deliver on the promise of smarter, faster, more human loyalty.

And that’s exactly what Capillary is building toward.

From streamlining the everyday to reimagining what’s possible with AI, our mission is clear: take the complexity out of loyalty and put control back in the hands of the teams who drive it.

Captivate brought together the people, the ideas, and the technology that will shape the next chapter of loyalty. But what happens next is what matters most.

Because in loyalty, hype fades fast. Impact lasts.

The conversations sparked here won’t end here. We’re just getting started.

See you at Captivate 2026. Where loyalty meets what’s next.

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Gitanjali is a marketer with diverse experience in Product Marketing, Customer Management, Research Analysis, Content, Event Marketing, and Sales Enablement. She has a keen interest in exploring and learning new trends and technologies in the marketing space. Besides this, she is an ardent practitioner of Yoga and Mindfulness.