AmEx CEO Says AI Could Make Credit Card Rewards Easier to Game

What happened

American Express CEO Stephen Squeri said on the third-quarter earnings call that artificial intelligence could let consumers game credit card rewards more, but AmEx can also use AI tools to better understand what people are doing.

Confirmed

Global impact / market context

If AI assistants help shoppers compare perks and split purchases toward the richest offers, card issuers could pay out more rewards without matching extra spending, which would weaken the profit per sale from loyalty programs and could force changes to perks and spending thresholds.

Analyst inference

Rewards optimization is already common, Squeri said, so this is an escalation of existing behavior rather than a new problem. For investors, the risk is pressure on loyalty program costs and revenue if customers extract more value from benefits without adding spending.

Analyst inference

What to watch

1. AmEx did not quantify the potential financial impact of AI-driven rewards gaming, so watch future disclosures for any estimate of costs or changes to program economics. Confirmed
2. Watch whether AmEx adjusts perks, spending thresholds or loyalty economics, which means the rules for earning and using rewards, as Squeri said issuers may need to rethink how they manage perks. Proposed
3. Watch whether AI tools that help consumers optimize rewards lead to more effective benefit use without extra incremental spending, which would raise program costs relative to revenue. Analyst inference

Evidence

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