\n
![](\"https:\/\/images.ctfassets.net\/jdtwqhzvc2n1\/366YED8XdafVnuQNZDTeo4\/fed88723114b431a6bf19c1080a4f9a3\/crimedy7_illustration_of_a_robot_on_a_shopping_spree_--ar_169_75dad0d3-252d-4c33-b253-e0bb0f047adf_1.png?w=300&q=30\")
<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
American Express (Amex) is building a system that lets AI agents shop and pay on behalf of users \u2014 but right now it\u2019s only within its own payment network, and still involves a black box that could hinder trust and auditability. <\/p>\n
Amex already participates in agentic commerce protocol projects, especially Google\u2019s Agent Pay Protocol (AP2)<\/u>, which focuses on interoperability. Amex\u2019s Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) developer kit, on the other hand, touches on something most protocols currently lack: Full transaction control in the payment layer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But it still isn't completely transparent in how it handles validation. ACE uses a closed-loop system \u2014 serving as both the card issuer and the payment network \u2014 to validate agent-led transactions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Luke Gebb, Amex's EVP and global head of innovation, told VentureBeat that the company believes this model is the missing piece in agentic commerce.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of what is missing so far is the perspective of a company like ours: We feel that trust and security are critical to advancing this space,\u201d Gebb said. \u201cThis is really the first time that an issuer is coming to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n
Amex sits in that interesting space: Unlike other financial institutions or card providers like Chase or Bank of America, Amex can route transactions through its American Express Network. Visa and Mastercard are two of the most well-known payment networks, but these companies don\u2019t issue cards themselves and must work with a bank.<\/p>\n
The ACE kit is just one approach to addressing some of agentic commerce\u2019s biggest problems: trust, control, accountability, validation, and security.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Consumers generally don\u2019t want rogue agents to run away with their bank accounts and start buying things. Merchants don\u2019t want to be stuck with unpaid items. Banks don\u2019t want to deal with an influx of chargebacks and the potential for fraud.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Projects like the ACE kit aim to build trust and accountability by verifying an agent\u2019s identity and goals. This can build the trust agentic commerce desperately needs. <\/p>\n
Amex claims it offers validation, too, although the process behind that is unclear.\u00a0It is abstracting how it performs validation, even though it explains at which layer it does it. More traditional systems feature a mix of deterministic checks and a flexible, semantic evaluation that helps match intent and outcome for validation. Amex said agents built with ACE can submit user shopping carts and check them against the agent's original intent. However, they did not disclose how this works. <\/p>\n
Practitioners building to the agentic commerce ecosystem lament that, despite strides in creating a trust layer, many black boxes remain that could hinder widespread adoption.<\/p>\n
Raj Ananthanpillai, founder and CEO of identity and verification system provider Trua, told VentureBeat that payment protocols and software kits like Agentic Commerce Suite from Stripe, Google's Verifiable Intent proof chain, and the ACE developer kit "excel at handling proofs, verifiable authorizations and the mechanics of fund movement, but leave upstream human validation opaque and underdeveloped."<\/p>\n
Ananthanpillai continued: "Without a clear, high-assurance cryptographic link proving that an agent is acting under the explicit authority of a verified human owner, merchants, issuers, and networks face heightened risks of repudiation, massive chargebacks, sanctioned people conducting financial transactions, and fraud."<\/p>\n
The ACE developer kit solves several running issues with agentic commerce, Gebb said, and gives developers access to integrated services:<\/p>\n
Agent registration<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Account enablement<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Intent intelligence<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Payment credentials\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/li>\n
Cart context<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
First, it deals with agent registration, establishing identity and trust with both the consumer and company agents. When a transaction begins, the agent acting on behalf of the customer and the merchant\u2019s agent can verify each other\u2019s identities and trust that they are dealing with the correct entity.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Next comes account enablement, which links the user\u2019s Amex account to their agent and grants the agent permission to act, or, in the case of agentic commerce, buy something.<\/p>\n
Intent intelligence creates what Amex calls an intent contract, where the user defines what they want the agent to do. Once the intent is defined, the ACE system generates an Intent ID<\/i> and a Proof of Intent Token<\/i> that definitively proves authorization in the event of a dispute.<\/p>\n
Amex handles the actual transaction part, where the user pays for the product through a single-use token. ACE establishes payment credentials used for the transaction, bound to intent and constraints.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce the agent has found the item that the customer has asked for, like red shoes, they'll make a call for the payment credentials, which is a token that has the boundaries that the card member has provided,\u201d Gebb said. \u201cSo, for instance, if they said they only wanted to spend $500, that token won't allow for a purchase of $600 because it has controls built in.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last piece is cart context and validation, which Gebb said helps banks and brands compare a user\u2019s cart that their agent submitted to their intent.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Amex\u2019s approach shows that for agentic commerce to really soar, providers must understand what systems will allow agents to do and who is ultimately accountable if something goes wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n