Reflections from Braze Forge 2025

• Andrew Luxem

My first Braze Forge experience, from speaking on two panels to exploring how AI is reshaping experimentation, deliverability, and marketing leadership.

Braze Forge 2025 at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas with panelists and attendees

First impressions

Braze Forge 2025 was my first time attending, and it delivered.

Hosted at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, the event brought together marketers, technologists, and operators to talk about customer engagement, experimentation, and AI-driven personalization.

Thank you to the Braze team (Madison DeJesus, Emily Calderon, Ethan Abrams, Sean Grove, Mitch Schneider, Christina Dely, Diana Kim, Victor Kostyuk, Zachary Sverdrup, Meredith Mitchell, Sadaf Qayumi, David Bielik, Matt Kreisher, Laina Davidson, Todd Grennan, Andrew Quicho, and many more) for the invitation and for giving me the opportunity to speak on two panels:

  • From Iteration to Acceleration: Building an Experimentation Culture with Victor Kostyuk (Braze), Kym van der Weyde (DoorDash), and Melissa Neikirk (Remitly)
  • The Dollars and Cents of Deliverability with Zachary Sverdrup (Braze), Courtney Tierney (Papa Johns), and Chlöe O'Malley (Rightmove)

You can now watch my Braze Forge session on-demand: From Iteration to Acceleration: Building an AI-Forward Experimentation Culture

Or explore the full library of sessions here: Braze Forge 2025 On-Demand Videos

From iteration to acceleration

Our experimentation panel focused on mindset before tools.

The best experimentation cultures aren't built on dashboards. They're built on psychological safety, shared learning, and rhythm. We discussed frameworks like weekly testing meetings, experiment repositories, and defining success by learning velocity, not just win rate.

My biggest takeaway: learn fast, but with guardrails.

AI is playing a growing role in that acceleration. It automates creative ideation and audience segmentation, cleans data, flags anomalies, and summarizes results faster than any manual process.

The result isn't just more tests. It's more meaningful learning.

The dollars and cents of deliverability

In the deliverability session, we looked at the economics of inbox performance. Good deliverability is a growth multiplier, not just a hygiene metric.

We covered four areas:

  1. ISP & Domain Strategy: pacing, authentication, and reputation management
  2. Postmaster Monitoring: using data science to detect shifts before they hurt revenue
  3. List Hygiene & Source Audits: ongoing suppression and validation to protect sender reputation
  4. Governance & ROI: operational rhythms and DMARC/BIMI compliance to maintain brand trust

Deliverability is where engagement, data quality, and revenue meet. Increasingly, it's also where AI-prioritized inboxes decide who gets seen.

BrazeAI and the future of decisioning

The product announcements were strong. BrazeAI Decisioning Studio, Agent Console, and the upcoming Operator move toward agentic marketing, where reinforcement learning continuously optimizes channel, message, and timing.

For marketers, this shifts the role from campaign executor to system designer: building systems that learn on their own and drive personalization at scale.

Key takeaways

  • Culture before tools. Technology amplifies habits; it doesn't replace them.
  • Deliverability equals revenue. Treat it as a growth lever, not an afterthought.
  • AI accelerates learning. Reinforcement learning and decisioning agents will redefine experimentation.
  • Community matters. The people behind the sessions made this event worth attending.

What’s next

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be writing about:

  • The frameworks and experiments we discussed in both panels
  • Highlights from sessions I attended on AI skill-building and composable data stacks
  • How I plan to incorporate Braze’s newest AI features (Decisioning Studio, Agent Console, and Operator) into my CRM experimentation and deliverability work

More to come here and in my Substack series.

Gratitude

To the Braze team: thank you for the welcome and the opportunity. To my fellow panelists and attendees: your insights made the conversations worth having.

Until next year. Faster feedback loops, cleaner data, smarter campaigns.

  • Andrew

Explore BrazeAI Feature Announcements →
Watch Braze Forge 2025 Sessions On-Demand →

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