Agenda Preview
With 75+ keynotes, breakouts, demos, masterclasses, and more, Forge is packed with opportunities to learn, connect, and be inspired. Explore the agenda preview to see the first wave of sessions and speakers, with fresh announcements rolling out weekly.
Data is only as valuable as the decisions it drives. This session bridges Braze’s native reporting capabilities—Query Builder, Currents, dashboards—with the broader question of measurement strategy: what should you be tracking, why, and how do you turn it into action? We’ll cover how to build a reporting foundation that connects campaign performance to business outcomes, common pitfalls in attribution and KPI selection, and how to use Braze’s data tools to answer the questions your stakeholders are actually asking.
Most people are only using a fraction of what BrazeAI™ Operator can actually do — and once you realize that, the next question is usually: what do I actually say to it? This session answers both. You'll see how Operator's reach across the dashboard keeps growing, and the real ways that changes your day-to-day work. WPP’s Paul Cater will share everyday experiences working with Operator as a genuine collaborator, not just a chatbot. We’ll also get specific about shifts in your approach to personalization, where Operator and Liquid do their best work together. You won't leave knowing more Liquid syntax. You'll leave knowing what's possible, and how to direct Operator to build it.
Join our Practitioner Bootcamp to kickstart your Braze Certification journey and prepare for the Braze Certified Practitioner exam.
Note: This bootcamp includes training only, and does not include time to take your exam. The Braze Certifications room is open all three days of the event for you to walk in and take your exam for free - no pre-registration required!
Exam Overview:
30 Multiple Choice Questions
60 Minutes
70% Passing Score
Agenda Highlights:
Data Integration
Audience Segmentation
Cross-Channel Customer Journeys
Campaign Orchestration
Braze AI Features
Preparation:
We suggest reviewing the Practitioner Learning Path before the bootcamp.
Who Should Attend:
Marketing professionals aiming to enhance their Braze fundamentals and prepare for the Braze Certified Practitioner exam.
Kickstart your Braze Certification journey with our most popular bootcamp, then take your Braze Certified Marketing Specialist exam for free while at Forge 2026.
Note: This bootcamp includes training only, and does not include time to take your exam. The Braze Certifications room will be open for you all three days of the event for you to walk in and take your exam for free - no pre-registration required!
Exam Overview:
50 Multiple Choice Questions
90 Minutes
60% Passing Score
Agenda Highlights:
Segmentation
Personalization
Campaign Creation
Channels
Customer Journey Orchestration
Reporting and Analytics
Preparation:
We suggest reviewing the Marketer Learning Path before the bootcamp.
Who Should Attend:
Marketing professionals aiming to certify their intermediate-level Braze knowledge and skills through the Braze Certified Marketing Specialist exam.
Prepare to become a Braze Certified Marketing Strategy Expert in this intensive bootcamp, blending theoretical learning with practical application to cover all exam competencies.
Note: We'll break for lunch from 12-1pm, then resume 1-2pm.
Note: This bootcamp includes training only. The Braze Certifications room is open all three days of the event for you to walk in and take your exam for free - no pre-registration required!
Agenda Highlights:
Braze and Your Tech Stack: Understanding Braze's role in your tech ecosystem.
Data Planning: Methods for importing data and planning strategies.
Lunch Break
User Personas and Journeys: Creating user personas and designing journeys.
Customer Experience and Orchestration: Strategies for multi-channel orchestration.
Data-Driven Messaging: Applying data-driven marketing actions.
Wrap-up and Q&A: Key takeaways and questions.
Preparation:
We suggest reviewing the Marketing Strategy Expert Learning Path.
Ready to level up your Braze expertise in our newest bootcamp? This all-day intenseive is built to prepare you for the Braze Certified Technical Marketing Specialist exam.
Note: We'll break for lunch from 12-1pm.
Note: This bootcamp includes training only, and does not include time to take your exam. The Braze Certifications room is open all three days of the event for you to walk in and take your exam for free - no pre-registration required!
Exam Overview:
50 Multiple Choice Questions
90 Minutes
76% Passing Score
Agenda Highlights:
Data Architecture & Design
Technical Integration & SDK Implementation
Data Migration Strategy
REST API Best Practices
Advanced Use-Case Solutions
Preparation:
We suggest reviewing the Technical Marketing Specialist Learning Path.
Who Should Attend:
Technical Marketers, Technical Account Managers, and Solutions Architects aiming to certify their advanced-level Braze technical integration and data strategy skills.
Build your Braze expertise through instructor-led learning, certifications, and opportunities to validate your skills.
When your company’s product or service appears similar to your competitor’s offerings, how can you differentiate and get consumers to notice? In this enlightening and entertaining talk, Matthew Luhn, accomplished writer and Pixar story artist on the Toy Story films, Monsters Inc., Finding Nemo, Cars, UP, and Ratatouille, will share his methods and experiences working with Disney/Pixar and advising other Fortune 500 companies. Audiences will learn how to innovate, differentiate and stay relevant in today’s business world, creating more value and winning customer loyalty.
AI is reshaping how marketers work, but separating meaningful opportunities from the noise remains difficult. In this hands-on masterclass, George Khachatryan will explore the AI trends and tools that matter most to marketers today, guide attendees through applying AI to a real marketing workflow, and help them build a practical plan they can take back to their teams.
BrazeAI’s Agent Console puts the power of custom AI agents directly in your hands—no engineering degree required. In this hands-on session, we’ll walk through building three core agent types from scratch: a Canvas Agent to assist with journey logic, a Catalog Agent to surface the right product or content recommendations, and a QA Agent to catch errors before they reach your customers. You’ll leave with working agents you built yourself and a clear sense of where to take them next.
In this session, we’ll tackle the three forces reshaping email strategy right now: personalization at scale, list fatigue, and AI-assisted content creation. We’ll move beyond theory and into practice—covering how to shift from batch-and-blast to behavior-driven lifecycle programs, how to set smart sending limits before your audience sets them for you, and how to use Braze AI to speed up content creation without sacrificing relevance. Expect real examples, practical frameworks, and honest conversation about what’s working across the Braze customer base.
The Women in Leadership Brunch returns to Forge for a morning of connection, reflection, and celebration. Inspired by this year’s Forge theme, Made for This, we’ll take a moment to recognize the experiences, challenges, and strengths that have shaped us as leaders - and the lessons that have stayed with us along the way.
Connect with fellow women leaders and allies across the industry through meaningful conversation and shared experiences. Come ready to celebrate how far you’ve come, learn from those around you, and leave feeling inspired, connected, and confident.
At Forge, you’re here to meet amazing people and learn new things. So, how do you spark meaningful conversation? It starts with a Braindate. Braindates are one-on-one or small group discussions based on topics shared by you and fellow attendees. Whether you want to brainstorm, solve challenges, share expertise, or learn from others, Braindates help you connect with brilliant people
You've seen Operator answer a quick question—we'll show what it can do beyond that, no agents required. As a built-in collaborator, Operator can walk you through complex setups, troubleshoot Liquid errors, and guide you through Braze's deepest features. Used well, it sharpens marketer judgment rather than replacing it, freeing your team for the strategic work only humans can do.
That same shift reframes Liquid. As AI takes on more content generation and decisioning, the real question is where hand-crafted logic still adds value—and how to build a personalization stack where AI and Liquid each do what they're best at. You'll leave with a sharper read on dividing labor between AI and human-authored logic, and a clearer sense of which skills matter most in an AI-first environment.
Data is only as valuable as the decisions it drives. This session bridges Braze’s native reporting capabilities—Query Builder, Currents, dashboards—with the broader question of measurement strategy: what should you be tracking, why, and how do you turn it into action? We’ll cover how to build a reporting foundation that connects campaign performance to business outcomes, common pitfalls in attribution and KPI selection, and how to use Braze’s data tools to answer the questions your stakeholders are actually asking.
AI is reshaping how marketers work, but separating meaningful opportunities from the noise remains difficult. In this hands-on masterclass, George Khachatryan will explore the AI trends and tools that matter most to marketers today, guide attendees through applying AI to a real marketing workflow, and help them build a practical plan they can take back to their teams.
Join our Practitioner Bootcamp to kickstart your Braze Certification journey and prepare for the Braze Certified Practitioner exam.
Note: This bootcamp includes training only, and does not include time to take your exam. The Braze Certifications room will be open for you all three days of the event for you to walk in and take your exam for free - no pre-registration required!
Exam Overview:
30 Multiple Choice Questions
60 Minutes
70% Passing Score
Agenda Highlights:
Data Integration
Audience Segmentation
Cross-Channel Customer Journeys
Campaign Orchestration
Braze AI Features
Preparation:
We suggest reviewing the Practitioner Learning Path before the bootcamp.
Who Should Attend:
Marketing professionals aiming to enhance their Braze fundamentals and prepare for the Braze Certified Practitioner exam.
Kickstart your Braze Certification journey with our most popular bootcamp, then take your Braze Certified Marketing Specialist exam for free while at Forge 2026.
Note: This bootcamp includes training only, and does not include time to take your exam. The Braze Certifications room is open all three days of the event for you to walk in and take your exam for free - no pre-registration required!
Exam Overview:
50 Multiple Choice Questions
90 Minutes
60% Passing Score
Agenda Highlights:
Segmentation
Personalization
Campaign Creation
Channels
Customer Journey Orchestration
Reporting and Analytics
Preparation:
We suggest reviewing the Marketer Learning Path before the bootcamp.
Who Should Attend:
Marketing professionals aiming to certify their intermediate-level Braze knowledge and skills through the Braze Certified Marketing Specialist exam.
BrazeAI’s Agent Console puts the power of custom AI agents directly in your hands—no engineering degree required. In this hands-on session, we’ll walk through building three core agent types from scratch: a Canvas Agent to assist with journey logic, a Catalog Agent to surface the right product or content recommendations, and a QA Agent to catch errors before they reach your customers. You’ll leave with working agents you built yourself and a clear sense of where to take them next.
In this session, we’ll tackle the three forces reshaping email strategy right now: personalization at scale, list fatigue, and AI-assisted content creation. We’ll move beyond theory and into practice—covering how to shift from batch-and-blast to behavior-driven lifecycle programs, how to set smart sending limits before your audience sets them for you, and how to use Braze AI to speed up content creation without sacrificing relevance. Expect real examples, practical frameworks, and honest conversation about what’s working across the Braze customer base.
Every brand says it wants to be AI-ready. Few have actually rebuilt what's underneath to make that true. Saul Lopes, Head of Customer Marketing & Engagement at Compare the Market, walks through the real journey — not the highlight reel — of moving off a legacy CRM and into intelligent, AI-driven engagement. From rethinking the data foundation, to applying AI decisioning across real lifecycle marketing journeys, to building the team and operating model to sustain it, this session is a practitioner's blueprint for what it actually takes to modernize customer engagement at scale. Leave with a clearer view of where to start, what to fix first, and how to build a team that can grow with the technology.
We are living in a marketing era obsessed with efficiency.
With optimization. With dashboards. With shortcuts.
AI promises speed and lower costs. Consolidation promises scale. Performance marketing promises certainty. And yet, brands are getting weaker, work is getting safer and growth is getting harder.
That’s not a coincidence.
In this session, Fernando Machado, Chief Brand Officer for Chipotle and one of the most awarded marketers in the industry, challenges the idea that creativity is a “nice to have”. He exposes the traps brands keep falling into – over-optimising, under-imagining and confusing activity with impact – and sets out a new definition of creativity for an efficiency-obsessed world: creativity not as decoration, but as a strategic growth engine.
Celebrate the people and brands shaping customer engagement at the Torchie Awards, followed by an evening of entertainment, food and networking
Celebrate the people and brands shaping customer engagement at an evening of entertainment, food and networking
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Pick up your Forge badge and get ready for the day ahead.
Most brands engage only a fraction of their true audience because they can't recognize anonymous visitors. In this session, discover how Merkle and Braze close the identity gap by transforming unknown users into valuable customer profiles, creating richer data for personalization. Learn how BrazeAI Decisioning then turns those insights into 1:1 customer experiences across channels, offers, and messaging. See how Merkle brings identity, AI, and lifecycle strategy together to increase loyalty, recover abandoned journeys, and drive measurable business outcomes.
CRM has been through a lot over the past 20 years; automation promised speed, mobile put it in your pocket, and AI said it would do it for you. Each era left behind the brands still optimising for the last one.
Now with AI, we’ve watched businesses overcome technical bottlenecks, but we’ve also seen the organisational chaos that followed. Teams build assistants in isolation, prompts are duplicated, knowledge becomes fragmented, and no one knows which tools, outputs or workflows can be trusted. The answer isn’t simply more AI, it’s future proofing how it’s used.
In this session, SCHMACK shares a practical approach for scaling AI through three foundations: Knowledge, Capability and Governance. You'll learn how to create reusable AI systems instead of one-off experiments, how to scale AI and deliver at pace, and which measures demonstrate real business value.
At Forge, you’re here to meet amazing people and learn new things. So, how do you spark meaningful conversation? It starts with a Braindate. Braindates are one-on-one or small group discussions based on topics shared by you and fellow attendees. Whether you want to brainstorm, solve challenges, share expertise, or learn from others, Braindates help you connect with brilliant people
Discover how GALE and PGA TOUR partnered with Braze to launch TOUR PASS, a fan engagement program that debuted at THE PLAYERS Championship and will evolve from an MVP into a scalable engagement platform. Learn how the team validated early success, expanded capabilities, and built a foundation for long-term loyalty. Attendees will leave with a practical framework they can apply to accelerate their own customer engagement and loyalty initiatives.
While AI is reshaping engagement, understanding where it scales day-to-day operations is key. Virgin Media O2 leveraged Braze AI Operator to transform workflows and boost efficiency. Facing complex canvases with 100+ elements, manual QA of 50+ messages and 153 URLs dropped from 3 hours to seconds, saving up to a day per person. By pairing Braze Catalogs with AI, they cut build iteration cycles from 2 days to 15 minutes. This agility unlocked rapid in-app survey testing and fostered CRM autonomy, shifting the team from manual firefighting to strategic, self-serve experimentation.
What does it take to modernize the CRM program inside one of the world’s largest CPG companies? Purina and Stitch will share how Purina organized their teams around a shared operating model to accelerate campaign delivery and scale engagement in Braze.
We’ll explore how their operating model helps move activations from idea to launch faster, with examples across gamification, personalization, and experimentation. The session will also cover how Purina leverages AI and agentic resources to support CRM execution — and where human expertise still matters most.
Explore four content tracks covering a range of customer engagement topics through customer case studies, panel discussions, product learning, and practical sessions designed to help you apply new ideas.
Explore Braze’s latest innovations in action. See our newest capabilities at work and learn how to apply them to drive stronger, more relevant customer engagement. Get a front-row look at the latest innovations across the Braze platform through live, in-dashboard demos, you’ll take a practical deep dive into new features, product updates, and what’s coming next—plus clear guidance on how to apply these enhancements in your own engagement strategies.
Join Kamille from AMC Networks to discover how Acorn TV’s "Murder Mystery May" campaign leveraged Braze Landing Pages and Canvas to create a hyper-personalized, five-page interactive experience. Learn how they captured double of their goal entries, managed complex user profile data to eliminate duplicates, and drove an incredible 35%+ subscriber CTOR.
You will walk away with actionable strategies to optimize campaigns mid-flight and build gamified journeys that successfully convert prospects, subscribers, and lapsed users alike.
Not an AI hype session, but the practical changes we've made to our operating model, experimentation, measurement, and how our teams work to become more AI-native while driving better business outcomes.
Explore the Engagement Expo to meet Braze experts, partners, and peers, experience live demonstrations, and discover new ideas for customer engagement.
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Low email engagement, poor data quality, and compliance risks plaguing your B2B program? Discover how TELUS Digital helped Ohio Liquor (OHLQ) migrate to Braze and implement a custom integration that unified contact data, powered sophisticated segmentation and personalization, and dramatically improved messaging deliverability. Walk away with concrete implementation strategies, B2B-specific segmentation approaches, and the practical tactics used to transform communications across their network of nearly 500 retail stores in Ohio.
Pick up your Forge badge and get ready for the day ahead.
It goes without saying that customer engagement is changing fast, for myriad reasons and in myriad ways. Amongst these changes is smelting of a double-edged sword—some making it easier to orchestrate a holistic engagement strategy and others making engagement (in particular for those without a holistic strategy and approach) harder than ever. What’s unchanging is customer engagement has never mattered more. In this CMO panel, marketing leaders will discuss the forces having the biggest impact on customer engagement tomorrow, the decisions they’re making in response, and what they think marketers should be preparing for now.
Speakers: Seth Matlins, Valerie Kubizniak
At Forge, you’re here to meet amazing people and learn new things. So, how do you spark meaningful conversation? It starts with a Braindate. Braindates are one-on-one or small group discussions based on topics shared by you and fellow attendees. Whether you want to brainstorm, solve challenges, share expertise, or learn from others, Braindates help you connect with brilliant people
At Luxury Escapes, CRM and lifecycle marketing don't sit in the marketing org. That was a deliberate leadership decision, and one that's paid off. Shay, CTO/COO of one of Australia's fastest-growing travel platforms, shares the philosophy behind embedding customer engagement within Technology & Product: why personalisation at scale demands engineering velocity, how AI and data become genuinely strategic when the right teams own them, and what this means for the future of marketing leadership. This session is for leaders asking whether their org structure is keeping pace with their ambitions.
How do you drive meaningful growth without simply increasing your marketing budget? In this session, Remitly will share how it brought together Braze, AI, product experimentation, and lifecycle marketing to build a more efficient growth engine. With more than 120 experiments across promotions and referrals, the team developed a repeatable approach to testing, learning, and optimizing customer engagement. Attendees will hear how Remitly used experimentation to identify what truly drives impact and where teams can find new growth opportunities without relying on more spend.
Personalization sounds simple until you try to do it at the scale of millions of fans, customers, or users — each expecting a moment that feels made just for them. This panel brings together marketers from marquee global brands to unpack how they moved from broad segmentation to real-time, individualized engagement without breaking their systems, their teams, or their trust with audiences.
This session will explore how AI is reshaping the design, operation, and governance of modern marketing technology ecosystems. It will consider where teams should invest, which capabilities should remain core to the existing stack, and where AI can deliver the greatest impact across speed, personalization, experimentation, decisioning, and operational efficiency.
Join McDonald’s & Publicis Groupe for a roundtable on the next frontier of McDonald’s CRM in the US market. Discuss their shift from a calendar-driven marketing approach to a customer-first strategy, with insights into the challenges and wins along the way. Learn practical tactics for breaking siloes between lifecycle, loyalty and campaign teams as well as hear how advances in data hygiene, martech and an iterative test-and-learn philosophy are powering more relevant, effective CRM for a connected future.
What really does occupy the mind of CMOs today, and what's expected of them? Whether it's brand, growth, or creative, AI has fundamentally changed the marketing function forever.
In this session, Chris Taylor, Chief Growth Officer at Left Lane Capital, and Neal Behrend, SVP Growth Advisory at Insight Partners, will share insights and real life examples from helping dozens of CMOs and Marketing Leaders across their vast venture portfolios.
Both panelists have impressive operator backgrounds from well-known brands and are now spending their time advising CMOs across industries and company sizes.
Over the past four years, we’ve led a step change in how we engage customers — moving from legacy systems to a modern, integrated martech ecosystem powered by Braze, Databricks and Talon.One.
What started as a UK transformation across Screwfix and B&Q has evolved into a multi-banner approach — enabling true 1:1 personalisation, accelerating loyalty through Screwfix Rewards, and expanding into service communications.
This session will share how strong leadership, clear vision, and cross-team collaboration has delivered this.
In a world of infinite scroll and shrinking attention spans, the most sophisticated brands aren't just competing for clicks — they're building ecosystems of devotion. Four women leading digital strategy at some of America's most-loved consumer brands share how they're turning passive audiences into deeply engaged communities, and what it takes to drive that transformation from the VP seat.
Bilt's members don't just get email newsletters. They get merchant offers ranked for their location, behavior, and eligibility by an AI recommendation model, then assembled at send time with Braze Connected Content: live reservation slots, real class schedules, the exact offer at each merchant, and personalized copy. Learn how Bilt leverages real-time data and AI to reward and retain customer loyalty.
Today, passive consumption is out; active, participatory fan ecosystems are in. Drawing on real-world success stories we’ll discover how these powerhouse brands leverage Braze to move from acquisition to deep, personalized retention. We'll explore community building, co-creation, and content-to-commerce. Learn real-world strategies to architect real-time engagement and transform audiences into passionate, revenue-generating communities.