American Express has introduced the Intent Intelligence Framework, a system designed to capture and authenticate customers’ purchase instructions before AI agents execute transactions. The company says the framework aims to ensure a customer’s intent is preserved throughout the transaction lifecycle and to reduce the risk of unauthorized purchases by agentic systems.
How the framework works
The process begins with a Create Intent API that records the customer’s instructions and any constraints, such as merchant name, maximum budget, and product preferences. After the customer authenticates their identity and signs off on the captured intent, the system generates an Intent ID and a Proof of Intent Token containing the high-level constraints.
Amex explained that the Proof of Intent Token is then used to obtain a secure digital payment credential. The agent uses that credential at checkout rather than the customer’s actual card number, which Amex says keeps payment details secure while aligning the purchase with the authorized intent. The Intent ID and token can also be referenced across the transaction to help with fraud checks and dispute handling.
Rationale and deployment
Amex’s VP of Agentic Partnerships and Strategy, Hannah Bozian, said the company wanted agentic transactions to remain “seamless, trusted, and secure, the way our card members expect them to be.” Bozian added that pulling intent earlier into the transaction flow can “help mitigate some risk before the risk occurs.” She illustrated the point with an example in which an agent asked to buy white Nike sneakers in size 9 but submitted an Adidas order; under the framework, such a mismatch could be blocked.
American Express incorporated the intent framework into its April release of Amex’s Agentic Commerce Experiences, or the ACE Developer Toolkit, and said it has not yet seen an increase in disputes tied to agentic commerce. The company noted consumer interest: an Amex Trendex report found 66% of surveyed U.S. consumers are likely to use AI agents to research prices and 61% are likely to use them for product or service recommendations in the next 12 months.
Amex said it is already in discussions with partners across the payments ecosystem to implement ACE and plans to continue developing the toolkit as agentic commerce evolves.
Original source: TechCrunch AI