Airship Announces 2026 Elevate Customer Experience Award Winners

Southwest Airlines, The Economist, and OneFootball among brands recognized at Elevate’26 Customer Experience Summit for setting the standard in mobile-first and AI-centered customer experiences

Airship, the mobile-first customer experience company, today announced the winners of the 2026 Elevate Customer Experience Awards. Global brand leaders from The Economist, Southwest Airlines, and OneFootball were among those honored at the Elevate’26 Customer Experience Summit. The Elevate Awards spotlight global companies that have developed exceptional mobile-first customer experiences for their customers, created innovative campaigns, leveraged AI agents to reach new levels of productivity, and achieved real business results.

"Evolving mobile-first consumer behaviors and unprecedented advancements in AI are driving a seismic shift that is reshaping how brands interact with their customers," said Brett Caine, CEO, Airship. "The 2026 Elevate Award winners aren’t just adapting, they’re leading transformative and meaningful customer experiences. These leading organizations are turning everyday interactions into seamless, cross-channel journeys that deliver meaningful business impact and lasting customer loyalty."

The 2026 Elevate Award winners by category include:

• The Elevate Visionary Brand: Southwest Airlines – Awarded to the company with the most forward-thinking roadmap, Southwest Airlines is actively shaping the gold standard of customer experience with bold, mobile-first strategies that prioritize frictionless travel.
• Journey Orchestration Mastery: The Economist – This category recognizes the team that has mastered the art of connection by building a seamless, unified customer journey across app, web, email, and other channels. The Economist is honored for successfully retaining digital subscribers and driving thousands of new app downloads with campaigns that drove consistent messaging across channels.
• The Business Impact Award: CIMB Malaysia – Focusing on ROI and results, this award recognizes CIMB Malaysia for a digital strategy that has driven significant revenue growth and operational efficiency.
• Excellence in Personalization: OneFootball – Awarded to the brand that treats every user as an individual, OneFootball has built a sophisticated personalization architecture that uses data to deliver hyper-relevant, 1:1 experiences at scale.
• The Experimentation Award: Sally Beauty – Honoring a culture of optimization, this award recognizes Sally Beauty for continuously testing, learning and improving the customer lifecycle. The team consistently and thoughtfully explores new ideas and strategies with the shopper experience at the center.
• The ASO Leader Award: Accuweather – Recognizing excellence in App Store Optimization. Accuweather is honored for strategically optimizing its app presence to drive discoverability, conversion, and sustained growth.
• New Mobile App: Virgin Atlantic – Showcasing a brand new mobile app, Virgin Atlantic is recognized for taking steps to improve the entire customer experience with a mobile-first outlook.
• Innovation Partner: VML – This award recognizes a technology partner that delivers mobile-first experiences that scale globally. VML is unifying data, orchestrating journeys and accelerating time to value.

For more information about the Elevate'26 Customer Experience Summit and the strategies these leading brands use to drive real results, visit www.airship.com.

About Airship

Airship is the only mobile-first customer experience platform delivering the first live, purpose-built AI Agent Fleet for CX. For over 15 years, Airship has pioneered mobile innovation—from inventing the first push notification, the first mobile boarding pass, the first live activity, and now the first intelligent agent fleet. Thousands of top global brands trust Airship to deliver unified cross-channel experiences and orchestrated journeys that drive measurable results at scale.

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