The first day of Forge Las Vegas, Braze’s flagship event, brought a powerful mix of inspiration and practical learnings. From conversations about female leadership to trends in retail marketing and the arrival of artificial intelligence in the daily work of teams, the day set a high bar for what Forge promises: a look into the future of engagement.

🎲 Leadership isn’t about rolling dice, it’s about knowing when to double down

At Braze, there’s Elle, a community dedicated to empowering women personally and professionally, helping them grow into leadership positions and build meaningful connections. Within Forge, this community hosts a yearly Women in Leadership Brunch that brings together women with outstanding careers.

This year, we heard from voices like Merline Saintil, Tara Walpert, Isabelle Winkles, Yvonne Wassenaar, and Ashta Malik.

Merline shared her formula for becoming unstoppable leaders:

• Visibility → Be excellent and make sure the world knows it. 
• Networking with value → Build a Personal Board of Advisors that challenges, supports, and accompanies your growth. 
• Personal Beta → Invest in yourself and maintain clarity on what you want to achieve and why. 

The phrase that resonated the most in the room was clear and forceful:
👉 “Don’t let where you come from limit where you can go.”

On the panel, Tara, Isabelle, Yvonne, and Ashta agreed that their most meaningful achievements weren’t personal accolades but seeing the people they led go further than they could have imagined. Yvonne summed it up powerfully: vulnerability is strength. Humanizing yourself at every stage of leadership is what truly connects and sustains teams.

♠️ Growth without data is like poker without cards

Another central session focused on retail marketing, comparing leaders versus laggards. Four pillars framed the conversation:

• Rich insights: moving from simply collecting first-party data to obsessively transforming it into a growth engine.
• Experimentation: turning every channel into a lab, multiplying tests, and quickly scaling what works.
• Capturing customer attention: it’s not enough to “pay for visibility” anymore—brands need to connect authentically through well-told stories.
• AI in connected teams: AI isn’t magic; it amplifies processes, but if something’s broken, it’ll stay broken. 

In fact, the clearest takeaway from the session was that leaders run more than 100 experiments a month. Moreover, for smaller companies that may not have the same scale, a great place to start is gamification, since it consistently delivers incremental value.

♥️ AI won’t replace your hand: it just helps you play smarter at the table

The day closed with an AI Masterclass designed to demystify concepts and bring them down to earth. The session explained the difference between AI, machine learning, and reinforcement learning, while also busting myths: “if someone tells you machine learning isn’t AI, they’re lying to you.”

In marketing, the dream remains the same: the right message, through the right channel, at the right time. Achieving this is no easy task, but AI paves the way to solve three big challenges: timing, segmentation, and decisioning. On that last front, Decisioning Agents are emerging strongly, setting themselves apart from NBAs (Next Best Action) thanks to their ability to learn and continuously adapt.

What is AI Decisioning?

It’s an AI capability that acts as the “brain” on top of your data systems (CDPs, data warehouses), learning in real time how each customer interacts with your brand. Using this information, it automatically selects the best combination of variables—message, channel, timing, offer—for each individual.

Instead of predefined segmentations, AI Decisioning builds living, dynamic 1:1 experiences that adjust and improve with every interaction. It’s the shift from rigid journeys to adaptive, continuous, and scalable personalization.

A real-world example that made an impact

During the session, we heard how a global airline used Braze AI Decisioning to personalize follow-ups with customers who searched for flights but didn’t complete their purchase. The result was striking: +45% conversions and an additional $10M in bookings.

Beyond the immediate uplift, the key insight is that this type of application makes it possible to scale intelligent campaigns across multiple products, services, and markets—building not just revenue but long-term customer relationships, where interactions feel more relevant and meaningful.

🎰 The real jackpot is personalization at scale

Day 1 at Forge made it clear that the future of engagement lies at the intersection of human leadership, data-driven strategies, and the smart use of technology.

With these foundations, there’s plenty of anticipation for the days ahead: more sessions, more learnings, and more opportunities to connect with the people shaping the future of marketing.