The news: Mastercard debuted Mastercard Max, an AI-powered benefits assistant that helps cardholders discover and assess their credit card rewards, per a press release.

Mastercard Max uses contextual clues to send push notifications to cardholders’ devices for purchases connected to rewards, like travel. From there, the cardholder can chat with Max from within their issuers’ app on how to take advantage of their rewards for travel, dining, or other perks.

Why this matters: Rewards are shaping how consumers spend. 

• 83% of cardholders say that benefits influence their decision when choosing a preferred credit card, per a CardRate survey cited by Mastercard.
• And 68% of affluent millennials say they would use their cards more if they knew more about their full slate of rewards, per Mastercard.

At the same time, expectations for discovery are also shifting among younger consumers. 

• We forecast that Gen Zers will have the strongest genAI user penetration through 2030, rising from 68.6% of the cohort to 82.1%.
• Millennials finish a close second to Gen Zers: 66.6% of millennials will engage with genAI this year.

Recommendations for issuers: As AI incorporates itself deeper into how consumers assess the value of financial products, issuers need to remind about the rewards that are already available to them.

• Behavioral data cues can help embedded AI assistants send push alerts at the moment consumers would benefit the most, e.g., a notification about lounge benefits as a cardholder pulls up to their airport for a departure.
• Surfacing personalized offers within AI assistants can also help snag cardholders’ attention: 9% of survey respondents said personalized account recommendations from AI chatbots were an “extremely valuable” feature, per our 2026 Cash-Back Credit Card Emerging Features Benchmark.

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