On 13 October American Express introduced the Intent Intelligence Framework — APIs that capture and authenticate a customer's purchase intent before an AI agent completes the transaction. The company hopes it becomes an industry standard for agent payments.
Key takeaways
- The Create Intent API records the purchase instruction, merchant, budget cap and product preferences
- The customer authenticates and signs off on the intent captured by the agent
- An Intent ID and a Proof of Intent Token are created, giving the agent a payment credential
- The framework joins April's ACE Developer Toolkit
- 66% of surveyed US consumers are likely to use agents to research the best price
Intent earlier in the transaction flow
The problem is simple: large language models are nondeterministic, so an AI agent can do something other than what it was told — including buying the wrong thing. Amex therefore moves intent capture to the start.
Our approach differs from the implementations of others in that it pulls intent earlier into the transaction flow. And this is important because it helps mitigate some risk before the risk occurs.
Hannah Bozian, VP of Agentic Partnerships and Strategy at American Express, speaking to TechCrunch.
Bozian's example: a customer asks for white Nike sneakers in size 9, and the agent submits a request to buy Adidas shoes. Amex could then stop the transaction.
A token instead of a card number
The Create Intent API records the purchase instruction together with the constraints from the request:
Once the customer authenticates, an Intent ID and a Proof of Intent Token with the high-level constraints are created. The token is exchanged for a digital payment credential the agent uses at checkout instead of the real card number.
| Artefact | What it holds | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Intent ID | a unique identifier of the intent | ties the whole transaction and its later stages together |
| Proof of Intent Token | the high-level constraints | exchanged for a payment credential |
| Payment credential | payment data without the card number | the agent's payment at checkout |
The diagram orders the steps described by Amex. It does not show merchant-side integration or dispute handling, which draw on the same Intent ID.
The same identifier later serves fraud prevention and dispute resolution.
Autonomy that is not here yet
Amex says it has not seen an increase in disputes caused by agentic commerce — it is building the technology proactively.
Most agents today ask for consent before buying, but the company assumes scenarios of greater autonomy: re-ordering paper towels, where the only real constraints are price and size, not brand or merchant. That is when a layer checking the transaction against the intent helps.
Why it matters
Amex is trying to turn intent into an object that can be signed, passed along and later checked — porting to agentic commerce the same logic cards already have for chargebacks?chargeback: A refund forced at the customer's request when a transaction was unauthorised. It works because there is a record of what the customer agreed to.. If the standard catches on, merchants gain proof of authorisation and consumers something concrete to dispute.
What's next
- Amex is in discussions with payments partners about implementing ACE
- The company says it will keep developing the toolkit as agentic commerce grows
