Amex Unveils Tools for AI Agents, Blockchain Payments

American Express has launched an ACE (Amex Agentic Commerce Experiences) developer kit, an Agent Purchase Protection program and a Passport NFT pilot as part of its work on agent-driven commerce and public blockchains, according to Luke Gebb, head of global innovation at Amex Digital Labs.

The ACE developer kit is presented as a framework to create trusted transactions when artificial intelligence agents purchase goods on behalf of card members. Gebb said the kit sets out specifications for how Amex expects agentic commerce to operate and how partners can integrate with Amex systems.

Agent Purchase Protection is designed to credit card members who are charged because of agent errors when the customer’s intent was registered and the merchant fulfilled the order. Gebb described the policy as a consumer safeguard for situations where a registered agent misbehaves: “If a registered agent shares card member intent with us and we approve the transaction and it happens, the card member intent was clear, the merchant delivered what they were supposed to, and the agent is the one with the error, we’re going to cover the card member and credit them.”

Passport is a mobile app feature that records travel history as unique nonfungible tokens on a public blockchain. The feature is built to look and feel like a digital travel log where users can add photos and memories and show their travel history; Gebb noted many users do not realize the entries are stored on a public blockchain or that they are NFTs.

Amex Digital Labs, which Gebb leads, employs about 120 people and focuses on developing prototypes, running pilots and handing stable products to core business units. The team aims to push roughly 20 projects into the market each year, according to Gebb, and works across payment products, offers and booking tools.

Gebb outlined two main technical priorities for agentic commerce work: enabling secure payments for agents acting on customers’ behalf and making Amex services available to large language models and other agents. He said the company is building conversational experiences in its app and website so customers can interact directly with agents about services.

On governance, Gebb said the team is adjusting internal review processes so lower-risk experiments can move faster while higher-risk payments products continue to undergo full review. He described the approach as risk-adjusted oversight that speeds lower-risk work without removing checks on core payments functions.

The lab is also researching stablecoins, though those efforts remain at an early stage. Gebb characterized the current period as one of foundations and early transactions for agentic commerce, and he expects to see transactions begin in areas where customers trust agents to act for them.

Gebb has led Digital Labs since 2017 and became global head of innovation in October. He joined American Express after working at startups and has held roles across strategy, product and digital platforms. He said the pace of technology-led change at the company has accelerated and that recent advances, particularly in AI, are moving faster than prior shifts such as the internet or mobile.