American Express has published a comprehensive new operational framework designed to help card issuers verify purchases made by artificial intelligence-powered shopping agents. The move addresses growing systemic vulnerabilities as autonomous software increasingly begins to manage financial transactions on behalf of human consumers.

The major payments company officially released its Intent Intelligence framework, establishing a standardized method to record a shopper’s precise purchase instructions before automated AI agents execute purchases for products or services. By capturing this digital paper trail of intent, card issuers gain a reliable mechanism to detect fraud, streamline payment approvals, and resolve complex transaction disputes when an automated purchase goes awry. For retailers, the system provides a crucial diagnostic tool to determine whether an ordering mistake originated from an autonomous AI agent rather than a standard user error or merchant fault.

While the framework marks a significant step forward in technical standardization, American Express confirmed that Intent Intelligence does not currently feature any live integrations. Instead, publishing the framework is intended to encourage other payment networks, financial institutions, and technology providers to adopt its collaborative approach, thereby fostering a unified industry standard rather than immediately introducing proprietary consumer capabilities.

"Providing authorized purchase intent before an agent transacts can give issuers greater confidence that an agent is acting as a customer intended, while also helping issuers proactively manage risk and reduce the chance of costly disputes across the payments ecosystem," said Luke Gebb, head of global innovation at American Express, in the company’s official announcement.

The rollout arrives as payments companies race to develop robust infrastructures for agentic commerce. In this rapidly emerging paradigm, AI agents can independently search for products, evaluate complex pricing structures, cross-reference reviews, and complete financial transactions directly on behalf of consumers. Despite the technological appeal, everyday shoppers remain exceptionally cautious about granting autonomous software direct control over their personal finances and purchasing habits.

Consumer hesitation is well-documented in recent industry research. In a nationwide survey of 1,000 U.S. adults released in August by payments company NMI, 58% of respondents expressed deep concern that an AI shopping agent might accidentally purchase the wrong item, size, color, or brand. Furthermore, 60% of surveyed consumers worried that an autonomous agent could easily exceed their intended budget, underscoring a profound trust deficit in fully automated purchasing systems.

Although American Express initially introduced Intent Intelligence as a concept earlier in the year, the latest publication makes its underlying technical architecture publicly available for external development. The company stated that the primary objective is to help advance a common industry approach for handling intent in the burgeoning sector of agentic commerce.

What the New American Express Framework Means for Retailers

For merchants and digital retailers, AI purchasing mistakes present an entirely unprecedented operational and customer service challenge. Under traditional e-commerce models, a merchant fulfills an order exactly as received from a user interface. In an agentic commerce environment, however, a merchant could theoretically fulfill an order precisely as transmitted by an AI agent, only to face an expensive chargeback or dispute because the autonomous tool purchased an item the human shopper never actually requested.

This is where a standardized, cryptographically verifiable record of the shopper’s original instructions—referred to broadly as purchase intent—becomes indispensable. By documenting precisely what parameters the customer approved, the framework offers transparent evidence regarding whether the AI agent faithfully executed those instructions or deviated from them.

Intent Intelligence is one of several core services introduced by American Express through its Agentic Commerce Experiences developer kit. The financial institution noted that the framework differs significantly from current implementations because it transmits a customer’s authorized purchase intent to the card issuer much earlier in the transaction lifecycle, specifically before an agent executes the final purchase.

American Express indicated that Intent Intelligence supports a wide variety of advanced purchase controls designed to give consumers granular oversight. Shoppers can establish strict maximum spending limits, expiration dates for offers, and specific merchant preferences. Furthermore, users can specify precise conditions for when an agent should execute a transaction, such as waiting until a sold-out product returns to stock or timing a purchase specifically for major promotional events like Cyber Monday.

The framework is also engineered to accommodate highly complex purchasing logic. For instance, a shopper could authorize an AI agent to purchase optional flight insurance only if the system successfully secures the primary accompanying airline tickets. It can also manage multi-step, multi-vendor transactions, such as simultaneously coordinating the purchase of shoes and matching socks from completely different online retailers.

How American Express’s Intent Intelligence Framework Works

The underlying mechanics of the system are structured around a continuous verification loop. The process begins when a consumer communicates their shopping goals to an AI agent, establishing boundaries such as budget caps, brand preferences, and delivery timelines. The agent then translates these conversational commands into structured purchase intent data. Before the financial transaction is submitted to the payment network, this intent record is communicated to the card issuer, allowing the institution to authenticate that the impending purchase aligns precisely with the cardholder’s pre-approved parameters. Once verified, the agent proceeds with checkout, and the transaction is processed with a significantly lower risk of subsequent dispute.

Intent Intelligence is purposefully designed to function across diverse agentic commerce models, operating independently of whichever entity happens to collect the initial shopper instructions. Depending on the specific architecture of an AI agent, the system can transmit instructions directly to a card issuer, or route them securely through a digital wallet provider or another authorized intermediary.

Why AI Shopping Errors Create New Payment Risks

Beyond assisting issuers with real-time verification, the framework is closely tied to broader consumer and merchant protection strategies. When American Express originally revealed its developer kit, it outlined plans for a specialized coverage tier known as Agent Purchase Protection. This proposed coverage is intended to apply to eligible transactions involving registered AI agents that utilize the developer kit and successfully transmit authenticated purchase instructions. For merchants, the ultimate promise of this protection is a measurable reduction in costly chargebacks and administrative payment disputes.

However, American Express confirmed that this specialized protection is not yet active, as there are currently no live ACE integrations utilizing Intent Intelligence, which serves as a mandatory prerequisite for coverage qualification. In the interim, card members retain the standard protections and benefits associated with their eligible American Express payment cards.

This evolving technological landscape also complicates the question of legal and financial accountability when automated shopping errors occur. According to NMI’s August survey data, public perception of blame is divided: 34% of consumers stated they would hold the retailer primarily responsible if an AI tool made a premature or incorrect purchase. Another 24% indicated they would hold their payment provider accountable, while a substantial 62% stated they would place the blame directly on the AI technology provider.

Where American Express Fits in Agentic Commerce

American Express is far from alone in building out secure infrastructure for the burgeoning agentic commerce market. Major financial networks and technology conglomerates have raced to establish their own protocols to capture the future of automated transactions.

In the spring of 2025, Visa and Mastercard both debuted dedicated offerings allowing developers to connect AI agents directly to their respective global payment networks. Visa’s Intelligent Commerce program provides developers with application programming interfaces and tools to embed secure payment functions directly into AI agents, working alongside major tech entities such as OpenAI, Microsoft, Anthropic, Stripe, and Samsung. Concurrently, Mastercard introduced Agent Pay, a technology designed to enable AI agents to complete transactions securely across conversational platforms for both consumer and business-to-business applications.

Simultaneously, major technology firms have developed open standards to govern how AI agents interact with merchant checkouts. OpenAI and Stripe co-developed the Agentic Commerce Protocol to facilitate secure connections between AI agents and online merchants. Google introduced its Agent Payments Protocol, utilizing digitally signed records to document user authorization, garnering early support from platforms like Salesforce, Shopify, Cloudflare, and Etsy.

Google expanded this strategy by introducing the Universal Commerce Protocol in collaboration with Shopify and other industry partners to streamline checkout within conversational AI experiences. Major retailers such as Newegg, Wayfair, Walmart, and Macy’s have since integrated the protocol, allowing consumers to purchase goods directly through generative AI interfaces like Gemini. As these disparate standards and frameworks proliferate across the financial and technology sectors, initiatives like American Express’s Intent Intelligence represent a concerted effort to establish baseline trust and security in an increasingly automated retail economy.