Unlocking Loyalty Rewards Through Intelligent Connections

Overview

Business Connectors in Microsoft Copilot empowers users to connect third-party business accounts to unlock loyalty perks, discounts, and curated offers across multiple merchants. By integrating these flows directly into Copilot, the assistant becomes proactive and helps users complete high-value tasks without leaving the experience.

My Role

I took over the project after initial explorations and worked as the primary designer for 7 weeks, partnering with a senior designer, PMs, and engineers. I led interaction design, visual design, prototyping, and cross-platform flows for desktop, mobile, and Copilot browser surfaces while shaping both merchant-specific and generic connector experiences.

Enable frictionless connection of loyalty accounts across multiple merchants.

Merchant-Specific Flows

Designed complete flows for Target, Walmart, Home Depot, and Nordstrom. Users connect accounts from chat prompts or product detail surfaces, then move through native sign-in with clear progress and confirmation.

FRICTIONLESSAI-POWEREDCONSISTENTSCALABLE

Design Goals

Enable frictionless connection of loyalty accounts across merchants, surface AI-powered value at the right moments, and maintain consistency while supporting each merchant's native login requirements.

AI-Integrated Interactions

Designed streaming "thinking" animations as AI processes account connections, with real-time badge updates and reward states across chat and product cards. These interactions create clarity without overwhelming the user and reinforce trust in the assistant's recommendations.

By reducing friction, personalizing interactions, and consolidating loyalty rewards, users gain real value — and Copilot creates a flywheel of engagement and trust.

Reflection

Impact & Outcome

Designs were approved by the Copilot council for flighting and established a scalable framework for connecting multiple merchant accounts inside Copilot. The work set a strong foundation for AI-native commerce by linking account connection, rewards intelligence, and trust-building interaction patterns across platforms.

By reducing connection friction and surfacing loyalty value at the right moments, Business Connectors makes Copilot more useful for real-world shopping decisions and long-term engagement.