AI and membership: One year on

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A year ago, we published a white paper around a question that was becoming harder for membership organisations to ignore:

If AI can answer almost anything for free, will members still see enough value in joining an organisation that has traditionally relied on giving them access to information?

Our view at the time was that organisations built mainly around content access were more exposed than those offering something harder to replicate: relationships, identity, trust and a genuine sense of belonging.

A year later, the conversation around AI has moved on quickly.

The technology has become more familiar, more widely used and more visible in everyday work. But the latest data from the UK membership sector suggests the bigger challenge for membership organisations is still not AI itself, it is engagement.

AI adoption is growing, but strategy is still catching up

When we wrote the original white paper, much of the discussion around AI focused on how quickly organisations were expected to adopt it.

The reality has been more gradual. According to MemberWise's Digital Excellence 2026 Report, AI adoption across the UK membership sector has increased from 5% to 26% in two years.

It’s fair to say that is significant growth! But only 6% of membership bodies currently have a formal AI strategy in place, up from zero the year before.

That tells us that experimentation is moving faster than strategy.

For many organisations, AI is likely already being used informally by individual members of staff through tools such as ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot, even if there is not yet an organisation-wide approach to where it should be used, what it should support or where the boundaries should sit.

That is not necessarily a problem. But it does reinforce one of the themes from the original white paper:

Adopting AI is not the same thing as having a clear idea of what you want it to achieve.

The bigger challenge is still engagement

The central argument in the white paper was that, as information becomes easier to access, membership organisations need to offer something more than information alone.

The latest sector data makes that point feel even more relevant.

Measuring member engagement is now the UK membership sector's single biggest reported challenge, ahead of admin automation, reporting and system integration, according to MemberWise.

That tells us something important. The biggest question for membership organisations is not simply whether AI can produce the same information they do. It is whether members still feel connected to the organisation, see enough value in the relationship and feel that the membership reflects something relevant to them.

AI can make information easier to find. It can help draft content, summarise documents or support routine work. But those things are not the same as trust, belonging, shared identity or feeling part of a community.

That distinction was important a year ago, and the latest data suggests it matters even more now.

What moving beyond information looks like in practice

This shift from information to engagement is not just an abstract idea. BGCI is a useful example of what it can look like in practice.

Before switching systems, the organisation was using a CRM designed primarily for fundraising rather than membership. That made it difficult to do much more than communicate with members through newsletters.

Once the organisation had a system better suited to membership, it became easier to understand and act on member behaviour.

As Membership and Conservation Services Manager Patricia Malcolm put it:

“sheepCRM has made BGCI more technologically driven, we now have a membership system that enables us to track, monitor, and reach our members effectively.”

— Membership and Conservation Services Manager Patricia Malcolm

That ability to understand members more clearly matters because engagement is difficult to improve if the organisation cannot see how people are interacting in the first place.

Moving beyond information therefore is not only about changing the content you offer, it is also about having the systems and data needed to build stronger relationships at scale.

What has changed in a year

A year is a long time in AI. Some of the numbers and examples in the original white paper have inevitably moved on. ChatGPT's early growth curve, for example, already feels more like historical context than a current talking point.

But the underlying direction has not changed, if anything, we feel that it has become clearer.

The case for moving membership value away from purely transactional access and towards more relational and transformational value feels stronger now than it did when we wrote the original paper.

Not because AI has suddenly made membership organisations irrelevant, but because information is becoming easier to access while engagement remains difficult to build and maintain.

That is also where our three mountains of membership success connect with the argument from the white paper. The systems and data foundation comes first because meaningful engagement depends on being able to understand members, communicate with them appropriately and act on what you know.

Without that foundation, relationship-building becomes harder to scale.

So, has AI changed what members value?

Yes, but probably not in the way some of our earlier research suggested. AI has made information easier to access and easier to produce.

That means membership organisations have less room to rely on information alone as the main reason someone should join or stay.

But that does not mean AI has replaced the value of membership. It means the value needs to come from somewhere deeper:

Relationships – Community – Identity – Trust – Access to people, not just information.

Those are much harder to automate and if engagement is now the sector's biggest reported challenge, there is a strong case for membership organisations to spend at least as much time thinking about how members feel connected as they do thinking about which AI tools to adopt.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Is the white paper still worth reading if it's a year old?

  Yes. The specific AI statistics have moved on, which is exactly what this piece is for, but the core framework, the shift from transactional to relational and transformational membership value, holds up against a year of real UK sector data and is the part worth reading in full.

• Has AI actually made membership organisations less relevant?

  Not on the evidence we have today. AI adoption is growing, but the sector's biggest reported challenge is measuring engagement rather than competing directly with AI.

  That suggests the more important question is still how organisations build stronger relationships with members.

• Do we need a formal AI strategy if we're a small membership body?

  Not necessarily a lengthy formal document, but you do need some level of intent.

  The important distinction is between simply experimenting with AI tools and making deliberate decisions about where AI should help, where it should not and what value it is meant to create.

• What is the biggest lesson from last year?

  That AI may be changing how people access information, but it has not removed the need for strong member relationships.

  If anything, the latest sector data reinforces the importance of engagement, trust and relevance.

Where to go next

You can download the original white paper, In the age of AI: will your members still need you?, for the full framework, including the Membership Value Pyramid and the ten recommendations for leaders.

If you want a clearer picture of how your own systems support stronger engagement, our membership CRM health-check takes a few minutes and gives you a practical starting point.