Inside ChargeX London: Retention in the age of AI, from the brands leading in EMEA

ChargeX London brought the 2026 roadshow to a close. Presented by Recharge and Shopify, the day gathered UK and European brands to dig into what is driving subscription growth right now. If you missed the earlier stops, catch up on ChargeX East in New York and ChargeX West in Los Angeles. Here is what stood out in London.

1. Where Recharge is investing next

With Meta costs up as much as 25% year over year, Recharge’s leaders delivered a clear message: growth comes from keeping the customers you’ve already won, and our product roadmap is built around it.

Oisin O’Connor, CEO and co-founder, laid out where Recharge is investing: AI that helps merchants’ customers, explains what is happening in their data, and helps run the program. Aidan Thibodeaux, President of Recharge, introduced the Skio platform and the combined roadmap, so merchants can pick the approach that best fits how they run their business.

Tarek Abou Chakra, Head of Product, showed what that looks like for Q4: Black Friday offers that go deeper without hurting margins, Shopify discounts that carry through to recurring orders, and cancellation pages that have more than doubled save rates for merchants with the right offer. He also previewed what’s next for Remi, Recharge’s AI assistant, who will soon be capable of building retention flows and customizing customer portals without code.

2. Shopify on what AI agents mean for subscriptions

Ben Homer, Solutions Engineering Lead at Shopify, joined Rob Barr, GM of EMEA at Recharge, to look at what agentic commerce means for subscription brands. As shoppers hand more of the journey to agents that know their preferences and habits, brands have two customers to serve: the human and the agent acting on their behalf. 

Ben described the move from static to dynamic to predictive experiences, where a fixed product and cadence gives way to one that responds to the individual. The practical takeaway: start with clean, accessible product and brand data, because agents rebuild a brand from what they can find, and brands that do not supply it risk having it interpreted somewhere else.

3. EMEA brands building for Lasting Impact

Two brands took home awards for subscription programs built around a specific, testable idea.

Cadence received the Innovation Award for opting into gifts instead of deeper discounts. A free branded cap with every first subscription cost less than an additional 5% off and helped the brand take subscription opt-in from 30% to 75%.

Ancient + Brave received the Performance Award for designing its program deliberately around the first 90 days, when around 40% of subscriber churn was happening. Over the last two years, subscribers grew nearly 6x, monthly churn fell, and subscriptions now make up 90% of DTC revenue.

4. Retention lessons from brand leaders

Merchant-led sessions with Heights, fourfive, and Puresport surfaced a few lessons worth taking back to your own program.

Judge offers on repeat orders, not sign-ups

An offer can fill the top of the funnel and still bring in the wrong customers. Review each offer a few months in, once you can see who came back, and weigh that over sign-ups. Puresport learned this when a free trial pack drove its highest volume and its weakest customers, and Heights made the same point: who you acquire shapes LTV before retention starts.

Match delivery cadence to how customers use the product

If subscribers cancel over usage, a coupon won’t retain them. Puresport’s top reason was “too much product,” so it moved to longer delivery cycles and added pauses. fourfive applies the same logic earlier, choosing pack sizes around how often customers will reorder before a product launches.

Segment the save offer

A subscriber on order two and one on order twenty are leaving for different reasons. fourfive sends newer subscribers education and longer-tenured ones a commercial offer, and Puresport splits its flows by order count.

5. Dedicated time to go deeper

The roadshow format left room for the conversations a big conference agenda usually squeezes out. Brands were able to book one-on-one time with Recharge’s executive team, work through their subscription programs with the product team, and compared notes with fellow retention experts between sessions. With smaller rooms and longer conversations, people left with specific next steps for their own programs.

Across all three cities, the brands pulling ahead treated each stage of the subscriber relationship as its own design problem. Thank you to everyone who joined us in London, NY and LA, and to the brands who took the stage to share what is working.