Navigating trust and AI-driven personalisation: Key takeaways from Grow with Braze HK

The marketing landscape is facing a decisive shift where personalisation alone is no longer enough. As consumers grow more conscious of how their data is used, trust has become the new primary currency in customer engagement.

At the recent Grow with Braze Hong Kong 2026 forum held at The Ritz-Carlton, Hong Kong, marketing and CX leaders gathered to discuss the future of customer engagement. The consensus across the sessions was clear: AI is emerging as a powerful connection catalyst, but its true value lies in orchestrating seamless journeys that build lasting relationships.

Evolving frameworks and closing the AI gap

Opening the day, Shahid Nizami, vice president, APAC and GCC at Braze, outlined how the platform has evolved its engagement framework from "listen, understand, act" to "context, intelligence, interaction". He stressed that merely listening to digital body language is no longer sufficient without layering in proper context and interactive loops.

Sam Meyer, area vice president, Asia at Braze, highlighted a critical trend from the region: over 45% of Hongkongers now regularly bypass traditional search engines to use AI intermediaries. To stay relevant, brands must maintain direct relationships that add concrete value, closing the gap between AI perception and actual user experience. Meyer added that leveraging AI decisioning to optimise for lifetime value and revenue - rather than simple clicks - can lead to a 25% uplift in results.

Automating personalisation at scale

Carrie Tong, assistant vice president of digital strategy and growth at Viu, showcased how the streaming platform uses AI to rewrite the rules of engagement. Moving away from static demographic segments, Viu dynamically segments users into eight personality types, such as the "trend tracer" or the "hidden gem hunter", based on their viewing behaviour, content recency and genre breadth.

This approach ensures that recommendations appear on the home page as curated playlists and are delivered via push notifications and emails orchestrated through Braze, creating a journey where every touchpoint feels connected.

Moving from channels to connected journeys

In a panel discussion on martech stacks, Genevieve Tan, global chief operating officer at Verticurl WPP Enterprise Solutions, noted that automation reacts to rules, whereas personalisation reads signals. She advised brands to treat AI as a foundational layer to unify fragmented data rather than just an optimisation tool.

Tina Wang, sales director - APAC at Infobip, added that channel strategy should be one of the first considerations for marketers, as it shapes the possibilities of a journey.

This sentiment was echoed by Lydia Chung, director, global marketing activation and partnership at Plaza Premium Group. Chung asserted that a shift from service-level personalisation to journey- level orchestration is the ideal evolution.

Rewarding loyalty through gamification

Ronald Wong, chief marketing officer at Tam Jai International, shared how the restaurant group transformed its loyalty programme into an immersive RPG-style mission system. Utilising a proprietary content management system alongside Braze, the brand launched an ecosystem that turned dry transactions into missions fans are excited to play.

The campaign drove substantial revenue without relying on traditional discounts, with the brand's NPS growing 4.6 times for Tam Jai and doubling for Sam Gore.

AI-driven agility and lifecycle growth

For note-taking app Goodnotes, early growth came entirely organically. However, after shifting to a subscription model, the company needed a way to nurture and retain users. Minh Ngan Tran, chief operating officer at Goodnotes, explained how the brand leverages Braze for lifecycle marketing to convert free users to paid subscribers, driving an incremental 15% revenue lift from its activities.

Meanwhile, Kevin Tsang, head of marketing at WeLab Bank, shared how the digital bank uses AI to quickly build out automated onboarding journeys. Tsang noted that while AI can generate the initial workflow, human review remains essential, allowing the bank to understand complex customer intents, such as foreign exchange needs, and act faster to keep users on an ideal timeline.

The path forward

As the event hosted by Karen Wong, editor of MARKETING-INTERACTIVE, concluded, the prevailing message resonated with the audience. In Hong Kong’s mobile-first landscape, businesses must unify their data and channels to deliver seamless, customer-centric journeys that respond in real time to evolving expectations.

Acknowledgements

This event and article were made possible by our partner Braze.

Braze is a comprehensive customer engagement platform that powers interactions between consumers and the brands they love, helping marketers ingest and process customer data in real time to orchestrate contextually relevant campaigns.

To learn more about how Braze can help you increase engagement and elevate your customer experience, visit https://www.braze.com.