Artificial intelligence: How AI is changing credit cards

Imagine credit card rewards tailored to your spending, travel options based on your past preferences, text prompts to shift some money over to savings and scans of your spending patterns to block fraudsters from using your card. Card issuers are doing all of this now – with much more in the works – all powered by artificial intelligence. The public faces of these AI-based systems are such as Alexa, Erica (Bank of America), Mezi (American Express) and Watson (IBM). Behind the public faces, these big data systems look at your past behavior, crunch the numbers and reply with personalized suggestions based on your spending and savings goals. Here's how AI is changing credit card rewards and even how you budget and save: "Customize is the key word," says Craig Snodgrass, chief data officer at Cardlytics, which partners with more than 2,000 financial institutions to run their online and mobile banking rewards programs.