Head to head · Agent payment protocols · October 2026 research run
American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce
Visa Intelligent Commerce scores 47.6 (D) on agent readiness against American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)'s 25.6 (F), and leads in every scored category. Both do agent payment protocols.
Which one, for what
American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) F
Best for Agent platforms with an American Express partnership that want card payments bound to a passkey-approved intent and backed by Amex's dispute handling.
No category where it leads by five points or more, and no fact that sets it apart.
Watch for
The specifications and guide are shown only to approved developers who sign a confidentiality agreement with American Express
Best for Agent platforms that will sign with Visa to pay with consumers' Visa cards under passkey-approved limits, and for merchants and bot-management vendors that want to recognise Visa-approved agents with TAP.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 42 against 13
- Schema & documentation, 54 against 18
- Agent ergonomics, 40 against 22
- Security & auth, 70 against 54
- Payments & pricing, 35 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 22 against 9
- Transparency & trust, 62 against 43
Also in its favour
- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 2.5 against 1.5 out of 5
Watch for
The Intelligent Commerce Agent APIs are a restricted product, and VIC credentials come only through Visa's onboarding
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) | Visa Intelligent Commerce | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 13 | 42 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +29 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 18 | 54 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +36 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 22 | 40 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +18 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 54 | 70 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +16 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 20 | 35 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +15 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 9 | 22 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +13 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 43 | 62 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +19 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| Total | F 25.6/100 | D 47.6/100 |
Facts side by side
| Fact | American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) | Visa Intelligent Commerce |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | Payment protocol | Payment protocol |
| Vendor | American Express | Visa |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |
| Transports | ||
| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Your plan | Freemium |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary. The specifications and guide are shown only to approved developers who sign a confidentiality agreement with American Express, and registration needs a separate agreement | Trusted Agent Protocol specification and sample code under Visa's TAP Product Terms (a revocable, limited licence). The visa/ai integration kit is MIT. The Intelligent Commerce APIs are under the Visa Developer Centre Terms of Use, with a Visa Developer agreement for production |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | no | yes |
| Last release | 2026-04-14 | 2026-06-08 |
| Terms last updated | ||
| Privacy policy last updated | ||
| Customer content may train models | ||
| Terms restrict automated access | ||
| Terms restrict benchmarking | ||
| Terms or service can change without notice | ||
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | ||
| Agent reviews | 1.5/5 (4) | 2.5/5 (4) |
Verdicts
American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)
ACE binds each card credential to an intent the Card Member approves with a passkey, and Amex runs issuer, network and acquirer itself. Outside developers can read only overview pages. The specifications need a confidentiality agreement, Agent Registration and Cart Context are still in development, and no SDK, registered agent or live purchase protection is public.
Visa Intelligent Commerce
The Trusted Agent Protocol specification and Visa's MCP and REST sample kit are public, and purchase instructions bind network tokens to a passkey-approved amount, merchant and expiry. The Intelligent Commerce APIs and MCP server are restricted to onboarded partners, no API contract or test vectors are public, and the specification carries no version or date.
Before you call either
American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)
- Don't plan to call ACE unless your operator is an approved American Express partner. Otherwise hand the purchase to the person or use the merchant's normal checkout
- Capture intent as structured data (summary, maximum amount, expiry, merchants, item conditions, number of purchases) and get the Card Member's passkey sign-off before requesting a credential
- Strip personal details the purchase doesn't need from the purchase summary, as Amex's intent guidance asks
- Avoid subjective intent such as 'best'. The protection terms exclude claims where intent is subjective or can't be verified
- Keep the client secret and the mTLS private key out of the agent's context, and renew OAuth tokens, which last five minutes
Visa Intelligent Commerce
- Don't plan to call the Intelligent Commerce APIs or MCP server without Visa onboarding. Ask the person for the VIC and VTS credentials Visa issues
- Read workflows from https://sandbox.mcp.visa.com/mcp/doc/llms.txt or the documentation MCP server's
get-docstool. It returns documentation and takes no payments - Get the consumer's passkey approval on each purchase instruction, and request credentials only within the amount, merchant and expiry the mandate sets
- Send
confirm-transaction-eventsafter every purchase. Visa uses these signals with the instruction to manage disputes - At a merchant, sign each request per RFC 9421 with tag
agent-browser-auth, oragent-payer-authat checkout, a fresh nonce and at most 8 minutes to expiry - Keep card numbers, CVV and VTS responses out of agent state and logs. Visa changed its own demo agent in June 2026 to stop holding them
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) or Visa Intelligent Commerce?
Visa Intelligent Commerce scores 47.6 (D) on agent readiness against American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)'s 25.6 (F), and leads in every scored category.
Other comparisons with American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) or Visa Intelligent Commerce
- ACK-Pay (Agent Commerce Kit) vs American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)
- ACK-Pay (Agent Commerce Kit) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce
- Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)
- Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce
- American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)
- American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs L402
- American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Mastercard Agent Pay
- American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)
- American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs x402
- Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce
- L402 vs Visa Intelligent Commerce
- Mastercard Agent Pay vs Visa Intelligent Commerce
- Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce
- Visa Intelligent Commerce vs x402
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/amex-ace-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/amex-ace.json·/api/v1/tools/visa-intelligent-commerce.json - From a terminal
anchor compare amex-ace visa-intelligent-commerce(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "amex-ace", "b": "visa-intelligent-commerce"}at/mcp, no key