At American Express, innovation is not a one-time milestone, it’s a continuous journey. Over the past decade, we’ve reimagined the way we deliver new Card products and benefits to our Card Members by thoughtfully investing in technology platform modernization, API architecture, data-driven insights, and digital experiences. As a result, we’ve completed more than 200 Card refreshes since 2019, averaging over 30 each year. Our most recent U.S. Platinum Card refresh—the most ambitious yet across both consumer and business Cards—showcases this transformation in action.

Continuous Modernization Fuels Innovation

Our technology transformation has been deliberate and multi-year, with ongoing investments in continuous modernization. These investments enhance our modular architecture, reusable frameworks, and advanced big data platforms that drive speed and efficiency.

Gen AI-powered rule generation and UI-driven configuration are two key foundational investments. Our technical architecture places a rules engine above the base code. That means Gen AI generates core decision rules for benefits, offers, and rewards, enabling faster configuration and deployment. Parameters and configurations are managed through intuitive UI layers, while Gen AI supports internal teams’ real-time setup, speeding up end-to-end delivery and reducing time and complexity for our engineers.

Previously, setting up new benefits could take three months or more. Now, with UI-driven configuration and Gen AI–powered business rule creation, setup timelines have been reduced to as little as 6–8 weeks.

APIs: The Building Blocks of Exceptional Experiences

At the center of our digital ecosystem is a robust API-led architecture. Our core products and benefits are powered by APIs designed for transparency and scalability.

For customers, this means seamless experiences: real-time benefit tracking, self-service enrollment, and personalized recommendations. For engineers, APIs act as modular building blocks—ready-to-use components that can be combined to create new digital experiences without starting from scratch.

This flexible foundation also made it possible to bring together lifestyle, dining, and payment experiences together in one cohesive ecosystem. Now, our mobile app serves as a hub where customers can manage their finances and explore curated lifestyle offerings, like discovering their next Resy reservation or a new travel inspiration—all in one place.

And we’re already building for what’s next: many of our APIs are AI-ready, paving the way for intelligent, context-aware features in travel, dining, and beyond. Our API strategy ensures that as technology evolves, our platforms evolve along with it.

Data-Driven Insights at Scale

American Express’ closed-loop model provides a high-definition view of our customers, allowing us to deliver benefits that resonate. Our new cloud-based data platform unlocks scalable computing power, real-time analytics, and robust governance to enable innovation while meeting regulatory requirements. For the Platinum Card refresh, this level of data-driven rigor helped us curate new dining, lifestyle and business benefits. For example, dining is a top passion for American Express Card Members, who spent over $87B on dining in the U.S. in 2024, so offering stronger dining value to Card Members was a key priority in this update.

Looking Ahead: Digital at the Core

The Platinum Card refresh is another exciting milestone in our digital journey, but there is more to come. We’re making strategic investments in our mobile app, website, and tech platforms to enable future product updates and seamless digital experiences for our customers. From more intuitive personalization to new integrations across benefits and rewards, digital is at the heart of every product refresh.