American Express Is Building the Trust Layer for Agentic Commerce

American Express announced on April 14 the launch of its Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) Developer Kit, a framework that gives developers the technical specifications to bring American Express-issued cards and membership value into AI-powered transactions across its network.

The announcement positions the company as one of the first major payment networks to build dedicated infrastructure for agentic commerce, a category in which AI agents execute purchases, bookings, and other transactions on behalf of users without requiring manual confirmation at each step, according to the press release.

The ACE Developer Kit provides select developers with access to five integrated services. Agent Registration verifies AI agents so only trusted agents are authorised to transact on the American Express network.

Account Enablement allows card members to register their cards for agentic transactions and enable personalised membership experiences.

Intent Intelligence ensures card member purchase intent is accurately captured to support authentication, authorisation, and dispute resolution. Payment Credentials enable verified AI agents to complete payments on behalf of a card member using tokenised credentials.

Cart Context supports the sharing of cart details before or after a transaction to enhance validation and dispute investigations. Agent Registration and Cart Context are noted in the announcement as still under development.

"AI agents are beginning to reshape how people discover products and services, plan travel and dining, and make purchases," said Luke Gebb, Executive Vice President and Head of Global Innovation at American Express. "Card Members and Merchants will expect the same level of trust and security that they always relied on from American Express."

Alongside the developer kit, American Express announced Amex Agent Purchase Protection, which it describes as an industry-first commitment.

Under this protection, if a card member authorises a registered AI agent to make a purchase and that agent sends American Express the customer's authenticated purchase intent, American Express will protect eligible customers from charges related to AI agent error. Terms and conditions apply.

"As commerce becomes more agent-powered, trust becomes the defining factor," Gebb said. "Our goal is to ensure that when an agent acts on a Card Member's behalf, the identities of both the human and the agent are authenticated and intent is clear."

American Express operates as issuer, network, and acquirer simultaneously, a closed-loop structure that gives it direct relationships with both card members and merchants, as well as end-to-end visibility across every transaction, according to the press release.

The company said this positions it to manage agentic commerce's core challenges: intent-driven authorisations, fraud protection, dispute resolution, and security, all within a single network rather than across multiple intermediaries. Merchants on the network stand to benefit from lower disputes and chargebacks driven by the greater transaction visibility the closed-loop structure enables.

For card members, the kit is designed to allow granular spend controls through the Amex app and, over time, to embed membership benefits, rewards, and offers directly into agent-powered interactions.

American Express said it is already completing AI-assisted transactions with leading AI platform partners.

Resy restaurant booking is named as an early capability being made discoverable across AI platforms, with Amex Offers and American Express Travel identified as future integrations as the programme expands.