American Express unveils "Intent Intelligence Framework" to check AI agents' purchases

Centre · 1American Express is introducing the "Intent Intelligence Framework", designed to capture and authenticate a customer's purchase intent before an AI agent completes a transaction, and the company hopes it will become an industry standard for AI-powered transactions. 1 Centre · 1Amex says the aim is for the customer's purchase instructions to carry through the whole transaction lifecycle. The problem it cites is that large language models are nondeterministic, so agents can do what they are not supposed to and make unauthorised transactions. 1 Centre · 1The framework starts with a Create Intent API that records the customer's instructions and constraints such as merchant name, maximum budget and product preferences. The customer then authenticates their identity and signs off on the captured intent. 1

Centre · 1An Intent ID and a Proof of Intent Token holding the customer's high-level constraints are then created. The token is used to obtain a secure digital payment credential that the agent uses at checkout instead of the customer's actual card number. Amex says the Intent ID and token can also support fraud prevention and dispute resolution. 1 Centre · 1Hannah Bozian, Amex's VP of Agentic Partnerships and Strategy, told TechCrunch the approach differs from others' because it pulls intent earlier into the transaction flow. Her example was a customer asking for white Nike sneakers in size 9 whose agent tries to buy Adidas shoes; Amex could stop that transaction. 1 Centre · 1Bozian said many agents currently ask for consent before buying, but Amex expects agents to act more autonomously, for example re-ordering household staples, where an extra check that a transaction matches intent makes sense. 1

Centre · 1Amex said it has not yet seen a rise in disputes from agentic commerce but wanted to be proactive as it scales. It cited its Trendex report, in which 66% of surveyed US consumers said they were likely to use AI agents to research the best price and 61% to get recommendations over the next 12 months. 1 Centre · 1The framework follows Amex's April launch of its Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) Developer Toolkit, which now includes the intent framework. Amex is in talks with partners across the payments ecosystem about implementing ACE and plans to keep developing it. 1 Centre · 1Separately, a Newsweek opinion piece by Amr Mohamed, founder and CEO of fintech company Neumetria, argues that executing a payment is not the same as judging whether it makes sense. It says agents need permissioned financial context, clear limits, and accountability that stays with financial institutions. It cites Mastercard's June 2026 launch of Agent Pay for Machines and a Gartner forecast of $2.7 trillion in global AI spending in 2026. It does not mention Amex's framework. 2