American Express launched its Intent Intelligence Framework, which records what a shopper told an AI agent to buy, including the merchant, a budget cap, and product preferences, before the agent pays. The shopper verifies their identity and approves those instructions, and Amex then issues an Intent ID and a Proof of Intent Token that the agent exchanges for a stand-in payment credential instead of the card number. Since the instructions are set before checkout, Amex can stop a purchase that doesn’t match, like an agent buying Adidas after being told to get white Nikes, and the same records can help settle fraud claims and disputes. Amex hasn’t seen agent purchases drive up disputes yet, but it wants the framework, now part of its ACE developer toolkit, to become an industry standard.
