Braze Forge 2025 takeaways every marketer should know: From Braze AI features to data innovation

If you’ve ever attended a Braze Forge before, you know it’s not just a conference; it’s a pulse check on where customer engagement is headed next.

But this year in Las Vegas, Braze Forge 2025 felt different.

The conversations were sharper. The energy was electric. The word AI wasn’t tossed around like a buzzword anymore; it was woven into everything, from the mainstage to the hallway chats over cold brew.

And yet, the message that resonated most wasn’t about technology.

It was about how human marketers adapt when the tools we use start to think alongside us.

We at Mavlers were there, not just as attendees, but as a Braze Spark Sponsor, soaking in three intense days (from September 29 to October 1) of insights, demos, and late-night debates about what it means to build empathy at machine speed.

Reflecting on the event, Nital Shah, Co-Founder & COO at Mavlers, shared:

“At Forge 2025, Braze didn’t just showcase product innovation; they redefined what adaptability means in marketing. The brands that win in 2026 and beyond will be those that can move quickly and adapt intelligently. At Mavlers, that’s exactly the mindset we’re helping clients embrace, where strategy, technology, and creativity move in sync.”

So here’s our first-hand take on the Braze Forge highlights that are reshaping how brands connect, engage, and grow.

1. The switch of agentic AI from “Do this” to “Think with me”

Honestly, when we first heard the term agentic AI, we expected another layer of jargon. But halfway through the keynote, as Braze unveiled its new BrazeAI™ suite, the concept clicked.

This isn’t about AI that simply executes commands. It’s about systems that learn, decide, and adapt much like a strategist who understands both brand goals and human context.

Here’s a quick insight into some of the key BrazeAI™ announcements:

~ BrazeAI Decisioning Studio™ (Generally available)

Enables marketers to deploy flexible AI agents that personalize every aspect of customer engagement, message, channel, timing, and offer, using reinforcement learning. The engine, powered by OfferFit, optimizes for business outcomes like lifetime value and profit, not just engagement.

~ BrazeAI Agent Console™ (Private Beta)

Allows creation of custom agents within Braze Canvas and Catalogs. These agents can handle content generation, data enrichment, and orchestration using either Braze-provided Gemini LLMs or third-party LLMs like OpenAI, Anthropic, or Amazon Bedrock.

~ BrazeAI Operator™ (Limited Beta, October 2025)

A unified, prompt-based workspace for building campaigns, running analysis, and automating repetitive operational tasks, essentially a co-pilot for marketing execution.

Watching these demos, we had one clear thought: marketers are about to move from being operators to conductors.

AI won’t replace human intuition; it’ll scale it.

At Mavlers, that’s exactly how we’re starting to use AI in customer engagement, not to automate creativity, but to amplify it.

2. Data activation that feels effortless and personalized at scale

If 2024 was about collecting data, 2025 is about activating it in real time and without breaking a sweat.

One of the most powerful Braze conference insights came from the product deep dives on Zero-Copy Canvas Triggers and the Snowflake Cortex AI integration.

These updates might sound technical, but their impact is massive.

~ Zero-Copy Canvas Triggers now let you fire campaigns directly from Snowflake, BigQuery, or Redshift, with no duplication or delay. Imagine triggering a loyalty reminder or abandoned-cart message based on live warehouse data.

~ Snowflake Cortex AI Integration adds a natural-language query layer, so marketers can literally talk to their data inside BrazeAI Operator™, no SQL required.

~ And with new e-commerce attributes like purchase frequency and AOV, segmentation finally starts to feel predictive, not reactive.

For those of us who’ve wrestled with data silos and syncing nightmares, this felt like the curtain finally lifting.

At Mavlers, our data team was practically grinning from ear to ear during this session because, for once, personalization isn’t being held hostage by technical friction.

3. Enabling cross-channel intelligence ~ sparking conversations that convert

Every year, Forge reminds us that customers don’t think in channels; they think in moments.

This year, Braze made those moments even more seamless.

Here are the new cross-channel features we loved;

~ WhatsApp Commerce (GA) – Browse and buy directly within WhatsApp chats using Meta Catalogs.

~ WhatsApp Flows (Early access) – Build interactive journeys (like feedback forms or bookings) inside the chat experience.

~ WhatsApp Carousels (Early access Nov 2025) – Swipeable, multi-image messages with clickable CTAs, perfect for storytelling.

~ RCS Rich Cards – Rich-media messages that mix visuals and actions within one conversation.

~ Automated IP Warming (Early access Oct 2025) – AI-driven deliverability management that safeguards sender reputation automatically.

Seeing the WhatsApp Commerce demo live was one of those moments when you realize that the boundary between conversation and conversion is officially gone.

At Mavlers, we’ve already started mapping how these features can help brands bridge their CRM and commerce flows from email to in-app to chat, all powered by intent data, not guesswork.

4. A heady mix of partnerships, people, and the power of creative grit

For all the tech talk, the most inspiring moments at Forge 2025 were still deeply human.

The Torchie Awards celebrated not algorithms, but imagination and campaigns that proved empathy and timing still win hearts.

One standout was VML x Wendy’s “Fresh Picks,” with;

~ 10+ million in-app impressions

~ 550K+ new digital accounts

~ 1.12 million offer redemptions

Their success came down to something simple yet profound:

“Automation tees up the work, but humans deliver the nuance.”

That line stuck with us because it’s exactly how we see our work at Mavlers.

AI handles the heavy lifting; our strategists bring the heartbeat.

These are the stories that remind you why you fell in love with CRM in the first place, because beneath every data point is a real person waiting to feel understood.

5. Ensuring that the fundamentals of deliverability, experimentation, and agility stay on point

It’s easy to get dazzled by new AI toys, but Braze carved out space this year to talk about the fundamentals, which are the invisible levers that quietly drive ROI.

Here are a few that hit home;

~ Deliverability as revenue: With new ISP rules and AI spam filters, inbox placement now directly affects revenue. Braze’s advanced deliverability monitoring is a godsend for marketers juggling multiple domains and geographies.

~ Experimentation velocity: AI shortens the test-learn-apply loop, so you can run 10 experiments where you once ran two and iterate in real time.

~ The subscription economy: Sessions like “From Churn to Earn” by VML showed how flexible pricing models and AI-powered personalization can boost retention and lifetime value.

At Mavlers, these sessions reaffirmed what we tell every client that shiny tools mean nothing without operational excellence.

The brands that’ll thrive in 2026 aren’t just the most creative, they’re also the most consistent.

So, what did we really learn at Forge 2025?

If there’s one truth we brought back from Las Vegas, it’s this, the future of customer engagement isn’t a face-off between humans and AI. It’s a collaboration.

What Braze showcased this year wasn’t just smarter algorithms or shinier dashboards. It was Agentic AI quietly taking over the heavy lifting, the decisions, the optimizations, the “when” and “how” of customer interactions, so marketers can finally get back to doing what we do best: telling stories that move people.

At Mavlers, that hit home. Forge 2025 reminded us that technology should never replace the marketer’s instinct; on the contrary,  it should amplify it. It’s the difference between automation that does things and intelligence that understands why they matter.

We left the conference buzzing, part inspired, part humbled, brimming with fresh ideas on how to help our clients craft hyper-personalized, data-backed, yet unmistakably human customer experiences.

The road ahead

On that note, you might want to read “7 Braze Features Designed for Simplicity and Impact. “