What Association Leaders Should Be Asking About Their AMS in 2026

Here’s a question I think more association leaders should be asking:

Is your AMS helping your organization move forward, or is your team spending too much time working around it?

That question matters more now than it did even a few years ago.

Member expectations are changing. Marketing is more sophisticated. AI is becoming part of everyday workflows. Associations are trying to create more personalized experiences, understand their data better, and drive more value without simply adding more work for staff.

That isn’t just anecdotal. Recent association-industry research points to growing expectations for more modern, frictionless, personalized member experiences, while ASAE continues to highlight the growing role of AI, data, and automation in association operations.

So as we head to ASAE Annual 2026, these are some of the questions I think are worth asking.

Does your AMS fit the way your association actually works?

Associations are not all the same.

Your membership model, pricing, chapters, events, certifications, products, benefits, renewals, and business rules are yours.

Yet too often, associations find themselves changing their processes because their technology cannot support them.

That feels backwards to me.

The better question is not, “Can we customize this system enough to make it work?”

It is, “Can this system be configured around the way our organization operates?”

There is a big difference.

Does your system know your members, or just their transactions?

A member is not just a record with a renewal date attached to it.

They attend events. Buy products. Open emails. Volunteer. Serve on committees. Complete certifications. Visit your website. Engage with staff.

That activity tells a story.

But if all of that information lives in different places, your team never gets to see the whole story.

This matters because member expectations are moving toward experiences that feel more relevant and personalized. Higher Logic’s 2025 Association Member Experience Report found that members increasingly expect modern, frictionless and personalized digital experiences.

Your AMS and your marketing technology should help you understand the complete member relationship, not force staff to piece it together from six different systems.

How much work is your technology creating?

This one is pretty simple.

Your technology should save your team time.

If staff is still maintaining spreadsheets outside the system, moving data manually, reconciling reports, sending reminders by hand, or creating workarounds for things the software cannot handle, that is worth looking at.

Every manual process has a cost.

Sometimes it is measured in hours.

Sometimes it is measured in frustration.

Usually it is both.

And this is increasingly where automation and AI are entering the association conversation. ASAE has highlighted applications ranging from member engagement and retention analysis to workflow automation and data-driven decision-making.

Can your membership and marketing data actually work together?

For years, associations have treated the AMS and the marketing platform like two separate worlds.

I do not think that makes much sense anymore.

Your marketing team should know whether someone is a member.

They should know what events they attend, what they buy, whether they are approaching renewal, and how they are engaging with the association.

That context is what makes personalization possible.

HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing research found personalization remains a major priority for marketers, with 93.2% of surveyed marketers saying personalized or segmented experiences contributed to more leads or purchases.

Association marketing is obviously different from commercial marketing, but the principle is the same: context makes communication more relevant.

The tighter your technology ecosystem becomes, the more useful your data becomes.

And the easier it becomes to communicate with members like people instead of database records.

Can you get answers from your data without starting a project?

Associations collect a tremendous amount of data.

The problem is not usually collecting it.

The problem is getting something useful out of it.

Can leadership see membership trends?

Can your team understand engagement?

Can you identify people who are becoming more active, or less active?

Can you understand what is driving renewals, participation, and revenue?

And can you answer those questions without exporting three spreadsheets and spending half a day putting them together?

ASAE’s recent coverage of AI in associations repeatedly comes back to the same foundation: organizations need usable data, thoughtful governance, and the ability to turn information into action.

That is where modern reporting, analytics, and AI should be taking us.

What happens when your association changes?

Because it will.

Programs change.

Membership models change.

Staff changes.

Priorities change.

Technology changes.

The AMS you choose should not just support the organization you have today.

It should give you room to become the organization you are building next.

That idea fits particularly well with the theme of this year’s ASAE Annual Meeting: Driven By Purpose. ASAE is challenging association leaders to move from reacting to change toward actively driving it.

Technology should help make that possible.

Ask better questions

I have spent a lot of years in association technology, and one thing I have learned is that a giant feature checklist rarely tells you whether a system is actually going to work for your organization.

The better conversations start with your people.

Your processes.

Your members.

Your data.

And what you are trying to accomplish.

That is the conversation I am looking forward to having in Indianapolis.

If you are heading to ASAE Annual 2026, August 15–18 in Indianapolis, stop by Booth 330 and say hello.

And ask us about the Cannolai Taste Test. And grab a cannoli, before they run out.

We think associations should have a better way to experience technology before making a decision.

See you in Indy.

David DeLorenzo
Founder, Cannolai
The Sweeter AMS

Sources

• ASAE, Smart Moves: How AI Is Shaping the Future of Associations, 2025.
• ASAE, ASAE Annual Meeting & Exposition 2026: Driven By Purpose.
• Higher Logic, 2025 Association Member Experience Report.
• HubSpot, 2026 State of Marketing Report.