AS does a lot of surveys for this kind of stuff, so it's entirely possible that this was nothing.

However... the new treatment here seems to be a "upgrade bank" for elites to spend on upgrades to F. I imagine this would be part of a switch to an upgrade schedule such a DL where customers are offered a personalized buy-up offer to F. It does have the potential to provide more value to certain customers -- if you mostly fly short haul up and down the west coast, and AS sells upgrades in advance for $50 each, $500 of upgrade dollars could correspond to 10 upgrades.

I don't think this is related to the AA partnership or joining oneworld; AA provides its top-tier elites with SWUs valid on its own metal, so it's not unreasonable for AS to do the same.