American Express Launches AI-Driven Purchase Intent Framework
American Express has introduced its Intent Intelligence framework, a new approach to managing customer purchase intent in AI-driven transactions. The framework aims to capture and authenticate a customer’s intent before an AI agent completes a purchase, ensuring the transaction aligns with the customer’s approval.
How Intent Intelligence Works
The core of Intent Intelligence lies in its ability to make a customer’s authorized purchase intent available to the issuer earlier in the transaction process. This allows the customer’s intent to serve as a control throughout the transaction, reducing the risk of disputes and misaligned purchases.
The framework consists of several key steps: creating and confirming intent, establishing proof of intent, scoping the payment credential, and applying intent throughout the transaction. By following these steps, Intent Intelligence provides a secure and trustworthy way for AI agents to transact on behalf of customers.
Capturing and Preserving Customer Intent
In agentic commerce, customers authorize AI agents to make purchases based on specific conditions. Intent Intelligence captures and preserves the customer’s purchase instructions, including merchant preferences, budget constraints, and other details. This information creates a unique Intent ID and Proof of Intent Token, which act as controls throughout the transaction.
American Express Head of Global Innovation Luke Gebb states, “Building trust into AI-powered transactions is critical to the adoption of agentic commerce.” Providing authorized purchase intent before an agent transacts gives issuers greater confidence that the agent acts as intended, while also managing risk and reducing disputes.
The Intent Intelligence framework is accessible through the Amex Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) Developer Kit. This kit equips developers with tools to integrate Intent Intelligence into their agentic commerce solutions. It’s part of American Express’s broader initiative to promote a unified industry approach for intent in agentic commerce, leveraging its dual role as an issuer and network.
Advancing Agentic Commerce
American Express’s Intent Intelligence approach reflects its unique insights into the payment transaction process. By addressing the needs of customers, merchants, issuers, and payment networks, the company creates a framework that is both secure and interoperable. This is vital as AI agents increasingly handle consumer transactions.
Flexibility Across Agentic Commerce Models
Intent Intelligence adapts to various agentic commerce models, regardless of who captures user intent. It ensures the user’s authorized intent is preserved throughout the transaction lifecycle. This flexibility supports different ways of collecting user intent while maintaining consistency in how it is applied.
