Amex’s Intent Intelligence Framework records what a shopper authorized before an AI agent can pay

TechCrunch reports that American Express is introducing an Intent Intelligence Framework to capture and authenticate a card member’s purchase intent before an AI agent completes a transaction. Because large language models are nondeterministic, an agent can misread a request and charge the wrong merchant, brand or amount. Under the framework, an agent calls a Create Intent API, the customer authenticates and approves, Amex issues an Intent ID and a Proof of Intent Token, and the agent then receives a payment credential that is not the raw card number.

The framework is part of Amex’s Agentic Commerce Experiences developer toolkit, launched in April. Amex says it has not yet seen a spike in disputes from agentic purchases and describes the framework as proactive infrastructure. Hannah Bozian, Amex’s vice president of agentic partnerships and strategy, told TechCrunch the aim is to capture intent earlier to reduce risk before it occurs. In an Amex-commissioned Trendex survey, 66% of U.S. consumers said they are likely to use AI agents to research the best price in the next 12 months, and 61% for product or service recommendations.

Agentic commerce without a durable record of intent invites disputes. Amex’s example is a customer who asks for white Nike sneakers in size 9 and an agent that tries to buy Adidas; tokenized constraints could block that at the network level so the customer never needs a chargeback. The same Intent ID is meant to flow into fraud and dispute workflows, creating a log of what was authorized, by which agent and when. Shopify and Google are building agent checkout from the merchant and search side (Shopify agents, Google Universal Cart).

Bozian notes many agents still ask for consent on every purchase, but Amex is designing for routine reorders with price and size limits and little brand loyalty, where automated guardrails become necessary. If each network and merchant builds an incompatible intent format, consumers face fragmentation; Amex says it is discussing adoption with partners. The record also has to be understandable to people at dispute time, not only to machines at checkout. Broader concerns about agents and payment credentials are covered in agents and credit cards.