American Express Introduces Intent Intelligence Framework to Secure AI Agent Purchases

American Express has introduced a new Intent Intelligence Framework designed to capture and authenticate a customer’s purchase intent before an AI agent completes a transaction, aiming to prevent unauthorized purchases caused by misfiring agents. The company hopes the framework will become an industry standard for AI-powered commerce. It forms part of Amex’s Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) Developer Toolkit, which debuted in April.

Hannah Bozian, Amex’s VP of Agentic Partnerships and Strategy, said agentic transactions involve a consumer, a merchant and an agent, and must remain seamless, trusted and secure. The process starts with a Create Intent API that records purchase instructions and constraints such as merchant, budget and product preferences. Once the customer authenticates and approves, an Intent ID and Proof of Intent Token are generated, allowing the agent to obtain a secure payment credential in place of the actual card number. These identifiers can also support fraud prevention and dispute resolution.

Bozian said the approach brings intent earlier into the transaction flow, mitigating risk before it occurs, such as blocking an agent that tries to buy the wrong brand of sneakers. Amex said it has not yet seen a rise in disputes from agentic commerce but is acting proactively, and is in talks with payments partners to implement ACE.