Amex unveils Intent Intelligence Framework for AI agent purchases

The framework arrives as personal AI agents increasingly make transactions on their users' behalf, and Amex points to the nondeterministic nature of large language models as a reason bots can do what they are not supposed to. Rather than wait for disputes to surface, Amex says it has not yet seen an increase in disputes because of agentic commerce and chose to build the technology proactively as this type of commerce scales.

The mechanics pull intent earlier into the transaction flow than Amex says other implementations do. A Create Intent API captures the customer's purchase instructions and constraints, the customer authenticates their identity and signs off, and an Intent ID and Proof of Intent Token are created to obtain a secure digital payment credential for checkout. Amex says the Intent ID and token can also be used later in the transaction process, for areas like fraud prevention and dispute resolution.

The release follows Amex's April launch of the ACE Developer Toolkit, which now includes the intent framework. Amex says it is already in discussions with partners across the payments ecosystem for implementing ACE, and that it plans to actively develop ACE further as the agentic commerce ecosystem evolves.