Braze has published two studies on customer engagement and artificial intelligence, arguing that many brands are failing to turn AI spending into measurable results.

One study, produced by Forrester Consulting, found that organisations using the Braze platform achieved a 457% return on investment over three years, with a net present value of USD $23.5 million and payback in less than six months. The analysis was based on a composite organisation built from customer interviews.

A separate report with Cowry examined broader shifts in digital marketing and customer engagement. It found that consumers now face as many as 10,000 commercial messages a day, increasing pressure on brands to make marketing more relevant and timely rather than simply producing more content.

The findings reflect a wider debate in the marketing technology sector over whether heavy investment in AI is delivering clear commercial gains. Braze argues that while AI adoption is close to universal, only a small share of organisations are generating measurable returns.

Execution gap

The research points to a divide between companies using AI within live customer journeys and those still treating it as a separate experiment. According to the reports, stronger performers tend to act quickly on first-party data, apply decisioning tools within active campaigns, simplify their technology stacks and continuously refine campaigns over time.

That marks a shift away from traditional batch campaigns towards systems that respond to customer signals as they emerge. In an increasingly crowded advertising environment, the reports suggest relevance and timing now matter more than sheer volume.

For marketing teams, the implication is as much operational as technical. Consolidating tools and reducing fragmentation can help teams move faster, while a tighter focus on conversion, retention and revenue gives executives clearer measures of whether AI investment is working.

Market pressure

The studies arrive as brands face pressure to justify marketing budgets while managing rising volumes of data and content. Many companies have adopted AI tools to generate copy and creative assets, but the reports indicate that content production alone is not enough to improve customer engagement.

Instead, the emphasis is on decisioning and orchestration: deciding what to send, when to send it and to whom, based on live data rather than fixed campaign plans. Across the industry, that approach is increasingly being presented as a way to improve both efficiency and customer response.

Braze, which provides customer engagement software, used the studies to frame the challenge as one of execution rather than adoption. It argues that brands able to connect AI tools to real-time data and operational processes are better positioned than those using the technology mainly to increase output.

Astha Malik, Chief Business Officer at Braze, said the issue is becoming more acute as customers are exposed to growing amounts of automated content. “While AI-generated content is potentially infinite, customer attention is finite and loyalty is fragile. Every piece of ‘AI slop’ that reaches a customer simply trains them to tune out,” Malik said.

She said the studies show a widening performance gap between different approaches to AI in marketing.

“The research we’re releasing today highlights a widening gap between brands using AI just to increase output and those focused on driving outcomes like conversion, retention, and revenue. At Braze, we are shifting the conversation from productivity to performance. Our community of ambitious marketers chooses a premium platform not just to build faster, but to deliver outsized business impact,” Malik said.

Taken together, the Forrester and Cowry findings suggest that the next phase of AI use in marketing will be judged less by adoption rates and more by whether brands can turn data, timing and decision-making into stronger customer response and measurable financial returns.

Braze has released new artificial intelligence tools for marketers, including BrazeAI Operator, BrazeAI Agent Console and Braze Creative Studio. BrazeAI Decisioning Studio can also now be hosted in Europe on Google Cloud.

The additions expand Braze’s customer engagement software with tools for campaign creation, content generation, asset management and automated decisioning. BrazeAI Operator and BrazeAI Agent Console are now generally available, while Creative Studio is being introduced as a new workflow for design and campaign execution.

BrazeAI Operator is an in-dashboard assistant for marketers that helps teams create campaigns, build custom agents, generate content and troubleshoot workflows inside the platform.

BrazeAI Agent Console is a central workspace for building and managing AI agents that generate content, interpret data and adjust campaigns in real time. The European hosting option for Decisioning Studio is intended for brands that want data to remain in the region while using automated decisioning tools.

Customer results

Braze tied the launch to customer case studies including Dayuse, Cleo and the American Diabetes Association, showing how the products are being used for customer messaging and campaign redesign.

Dayuse, a platform for booking daytime hotel rooms, used BrazeAI Agent Console to generate messages at send time using customer context such as booking history, preferences and language. The company reported a 90% increase in booking conversion rate, doubled incremental revenue for a key campaign and a 23% uplift in repeat engagement after adopting the tool.

According to Braze, Dayuse also uses data such as abandoned hotel bookings, previously booked property type, booking history and location to tailor campaign content.

“Personalization at this level across marketers used to require significant manual workload. With BrazeAI Agent Console, we were able to scale individualized messaging across languages and regions in a way that feels relevant to each customer. That shift has had a clear impact on how customers engage and return to our platform,” said Martin Juglair, CRM Manager at Dayuse.

Cleo, a family care platform, used BrazeAI Operator to rebuild its welcome experience around individual member needs. Braze said this led to an 81% reduction in unsubscribes, a 97% drop in opt-outs on the first email, a 284% increase in app opens and a 124% lift in push notification engagement.

“The Operator literally thought of ways of using customer data I hadn’t even considered and incorporated it into advanced Liquid code. It prevented issues I wouldn’t have caught until QA, and I wouldn’t have known where to start troubleshooting,” said Holly Jacobson, Sr Lifecycle Marketing Manager at Cleo.

The American Diabetes Association used the same product to redesign its eCommerce journey from a single-message approach into a multi-step sequence, according to Braze.

“I felt like I was talking to someone who worked for Braze. It’s my thought partner. I’m kind of addicted to it. I’m doing things that would have been completely impossible without the Operator,” said Elaine Armbruster, Director of Digital Experience at the American Diabetes Association.

Creative workflow

The new Creative Studio brings design assets and campaign execution into one part of the Braze platform. It includes integrations with Figma and Canva, a central media library, templates and brand guidelines.

The move reflects a broader effort by software suppliers to reduce the number of separate tools marketing teams use for design, approval and deployment. By connecting asset creation more closely to messaging systems, vendors aim to make it easier for marketers to update campaigns across multiple channels without switching between products.

Canva and Figma users quoted by Braze described the integrations as a way to simplify daily work. One example came from Mercari US, where a CRM manager said the Figma plugin reduced the friction of moving images into campaigns.

“The new Figma plugin is a great workflow hack for marketers like me building asset-heavy campaigns or landing pages on tight deadlines. We all know the headache of juggling multiple tabs just to get one task done, and this tool eliminates that friction by uploading images in a single click. It’s simple, but I rely on it daily to save several minutes on each project,” said Ashley Auger, CRM Technical Manager, Growth, at Mercari US.

Canva also linked the integration to the use of AI-generated visuals in marketing workflows.

“The most exciting thing about agentic AI isn’t what any single tool can do on its own, it’s what opens up when the right tools work together. Canva AI gives agents the ability to generate and iterate on visuals at scale, and Braze gets that creative in front of the right audience at the right moment. Closing the loop from visual creation to customer activation is what marketing teams need to keep up, and this integration enables users to seamlessly publish their on-brand Canva assets to Braze while maintaining design integrity,” said Anwar Haneef, Head of Ecosystem at Canva.

Bill Magnuson, Cofounder and Chief Executive Officer of Braze, said the company is seeing demand from large brands that want AI tools embedded directly in marketing systems rather than offered as stand-alone features.

“The world’s largest and most sophisticated brands are choosing Braze to drive their AI transformation during this period of rapidly evolving disruption and opportunity. But for AI to matter, it has to be more than a promise. It has to work, at scale, and be enterprise-ready,” said Magnuson.

The clothing brand, which rose to prominence in the 1990s, fell into administration in January, with insolvency specialists brought in to oversee the process.

Soon afterwards, its name and other intellectual property were snapped up by US restructuring firm Gordon Brothers, the company behind the revivals of Laura Ashley and Poundland.

But that rescue package did not extend to LK Bennett’s physical retail estate, meaning its nine standalone boutiques and 13 concessions will all close in days, as per an announcement from the brand this week.

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LK Bennett stock previously at Oxford Westgate’s John Lewis store. (Image: Newsquest)

In an Instagram post on Tuesday (April 21), the fashion retailer said: “Only 6 days remain before our stores close.

“Visit us exclusively in-store to enjoy up to 80 per cent off across all collections. Once it’s gone, it’s gone — don’t miss your final chance to shop.”

There is also a countdown on the LK Bennett website, informing shoppers of how long they have before their local store shuts for good.

LK Bennett has operated a concession from within the John Lewis at the Oxford Westgate shopping centre in the city alongside other fashion retailers.

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Back in February, stock had been reduced in the brand’s section within the store, with just a couple of tables of women’s shoes remaining in-store.

Prices online at John Lewis on the brand’s stock were also slashed, with LK Bennett heading into administration.

Now, this week, the fashion retailer’s products have been completely removed from the shelves of John Lewis.

The website, which has now been “closed”, is advertising closing down sale prices of at least 90 per cent discount as of Friday (April 24).