Tillo set out a 2026 plan to make artificial intelligence a core part of how it develops and operates its gift card and rewards business. The strategy, first published in January, describes work across engineering, product, finance, support and commercial teams. It is an operating commitment rather than the launch of a separately priced AI product. [S01]

What the company says has changed

The update by chief technology officer David Kavanagh describes investment in tools, internal training and AI Community Days. As a concrete example, Tillo points to an improvement to its failed-jobs page that moved from an internal idea into production. It does not provide a delivery-time comparison, cost saving or customer-performance measure for that change. [S01, S02]

The distinction matters for a business handling prepaid value. Writing a change faster is one result; operating that change reliably is another. Customers still need a clear account of which transactions succeeded, which failed and which require attention. An internal productivity claim cannot, by itself, answer those service questions.

A strategy with several intended outcomes

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A strategy with several intended outcomes

Area of the strategy

Evidence a business buyer can ask for

Software delivery

Release timing and reliability over a defined period

Operational responsiveness

Resolution times for comparable issues

Customer support

Consistent answers and traceable escalation

Tillo says it wants faster delivery, stronger operations, better decisions and improved customer experience. The company also stresses the need to protect trust when rewards programmes involve customer funds, fraud controls and service expectations. [S01]

Those aims are relevant to gift card distribution because the value of a platform is experienced through ordinary tasks: obtaining a card, checking an order, resolving a failed delivery and reconciling funds. A change to internal working methods becomes commercially meaningful when it improves one of those tasks in a way a customer can observe.

How to judge the commitment

The announcement supplies a direction and one internal example, but no quantified baseline against which its broader ambitions can yet be assessed. [S01] Future reporting would be more informative if it separated development efficiency from production reliability and customer outcomes.

For buyers, the useful question is therefore what changed in the service they receive. The company’s choice of tools provides context; delivery quality and accountability remain the measures that determine whether the strategy works.