Amex innovation chief Luke Gebb on AI, agents and blockchain

Luke Gebb, head of global innovation at American Express, described several AI-driven initiatives aimed at supporting transactions conducted by software agents and experimenting with public blockchain features for customers.

Gebb outlined the Amex Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) Developer Kit as a technical framework that defines how agent-driven purchases should work. The kit includes specifications for registering agents and for transmitting customer intent so agents can complete transactions on behalf of card members.

Alongside ACE, Amex introduced Agent Purchase Protection, a commitment to credit card members when an approved agent makes an error that leads to a charge. The protection applies when the agent was registered, the card member’s intent was communicated clearly and the merchant delivered the expected goods or services.

The projects are produced by Amex Digital Labs, the internal innovation unit Gebb runs. The lab employs about 120 people and aims to develop roughly 20 projects a year, moving ideas from prototype to pilot and then handing stable products to Amex business units.

On agentic commerce, the lab is working to make payments, offers and booking tools available when customers interact with large language models. The team is also building app and web experiences that let customers communicate with agents about services. Gebb expects initial agent-driven transactions to appear in the next 12 months in areas where customers are likely to trust agents.

On blockchain, Amex launched Passport, a feature that creates a unique nonfungible token for each card member’s travel history and displays it inside the company’s mobile app. Most users view Passport as a digital keepsake and do not focus on the fact that the records reside on a public blockchain. The lab is also investigating stablecoins, but those efforts remain at an early stage.

Gebb described his role as removing internal barriers and adjusting governance to match project risk, so high-risk systems receive full review while lower-risk experiments can move faster. He said the lab focuses on projects that business units lack the time or specific expertise to develop themselves.

Gebb has worked at American Express for more than two decades, with a break to join a web-era startup before returning in 2002. He helped create Amex Offers, formed Digital Labs in September 2017 and became global head of innovation in October of the previous year. “At the end of the day, my optimism wins out,” Gebb said, summing up his view on the pace and direction of recent technology developments.