{ "data": { "a": { "slug": "amex-ace", "name": "American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)", "vendor": "American Express", "vendorUrl": "https://www.americanexpress.com/en-us/company/agentic-commerce/", "kind": "protocol", "category": "checkout-protocols", "summary": "American Express's Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) developer kit lets verified AI agents pay with scoped, tokenised Amex card credentials against a purchase intent the Card Member approves. Access needs an application and agreements with American Express.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amex-ace", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amex-ace.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amex-ace.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amex-ace.json", "license": "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", "transports": [], "packages": [], "auth": "oauth", "authNotes": "Partners call the ACE APIs with an OAuth 2.0 client credentials token, obtained with a JWT client assertion signed with the project's client secret, over mutual TLS with a CA-issued client certificate uploaded to the developer portal. Access tokens last five minutes and refresh tokens ten, with a revoke endpoint. Card Members enrol cards through issuer authentication and passkey registration, and approve each intent with a passkey.", "pricing": "byo-plan", "pricingNotes": "No fee for ACE is published. Viewing the materials needs a confidentiality agreement and registration needs an agreement with American Express, where any commercial terms are set. Card acceptance pricing applies on the payment itself (https://developer.americanexpress.com/products/nextgen-agentic-payments/overview, checked 2026-10-16).", "priceSummary": "Your plan", "where": "spec", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "A card-network programme for agent payments, not a tool that accepts payment. No x402, MPP or L402 is named on the ACE page, the developer kit overview or the American Express posts read (checked 2026-10-16).", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": null, "popularity": { "githubStars": null, "npmWeekly": null, "pypiWeekly": null, "asOf": "2026-10-16" }, "docsUrl": "https://developer.americanexpress.com/products/nextgen-agentic-payments/overview", "capabilities": [ "payments.protocol", "payments.card-token", "payments.mandate", "auth.consent" ], "tags": [ "protocol", "cards", "partner-only", "passkeys", "tokenisation", "web-bot-auth", "amex" ], "lastRelease": "2026-04-14", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 25.6, "grade": "F", "agentReady": false, "rank": 0, "ranked": false, "notRankedWhy": "A protocol, graded on the same scale but not ranked against tools", "rankOf": 1098, "categoryRank": 5, "methodology": "0.4", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 22, "maintenance": 9, "payments": 20, "reliability": 13, "schema": 18, "security": 54, "transparency": 43 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "medium", "date": "2026-10-16" }, "negative": 0, "verdict": "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.", "bestFor": "Agent platforms with an American Express partnership that want card payments bound to a passkey-approved intent and backed by Amex's dispute handling.", "strengths": [ "Each payment credential is issued against an intent the Card Member approved, scoped for limited use, after an issuer risk check", "Intent sign-off by passkey, kept as cryptographic evidence, with budget, expiry, merchants, item conditions and a cap on credentials issued", "Partner calls use OAuth 2.0 client credentials with a signed JWT assertion, five-minute tokens, a revoke endpoint and mutual TLS", "Announced purchase protection for US Card Members when a registered agent's purchase deviates from the authenticated intent", "Amex says it contributes to AP2 and plans Web Bot Auth for agent identity, and Cloudflare names it as a Web Bot Auth partner" ], "weaknesses": [ "The specifications and guide are shown only to approved developers who sign a confidentiality agreement with American Express", "The ACE page still lists Agent Registration and Cart Context specifications as under development, as it did on 14 April 2026", "Registration needs an application and a signed agreement, approval isn't guaranteed, and there is no self-serve sandbox", "No public SDK, MCP server, reference implementation, changelog or test vectors; Amex says tooling will come later", "Purchase protection is a future benefit with unpublished full terms, and no registered agent is named" ], "agentNotes": [ "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" ], "metrics": { "kind": "spec", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 4, "avgRating": 1.5, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "medium", "grade": "F", "methodology": "0.4", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 25.6 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 22, "maintenance": 9, "payments": 20, "reliability": 13, "schema": 18, "security": 54, "transparency": 20 }, "provenanceScore": 65 }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/payments.protocol", "tool": "https://letme.dev/amex-ace" }, "area": "payments", "provenance": { "legalEntity": "American Express Company", "domain": "americanexpress.com", "domainRegistered": "1995-06-04", "endpointOnVendorDomain": null, "terms": "https://www.americanexpress.com/us/legal-disclosures/website-rules-and-regulations.html", "privacy": "https://www.americanexpress.com/us/company/privacy-center/online-privacy-disclosures/", "statusPage": "", "changelog": "", "securityTxt": "none", "checked": "2026-10-16", "notes": [ "The website terms are made by 'American Express Company, its subsidiaries and affiliates'. The purchase protection terms name American Express National Bank and American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc. as the issuers of eligible cards.", "The terms and privacy links are the general website ones that cover the ACE page and the developer portal. The ACE agreements themselves aren't public.", "RDAP for americanexpress.com gives a registration date of 4 June 1995. The ACE APIs are listed on apigwm.americanexpress.com.", "No changelog for ACE was found. The portal's general 'What's New' page was last updated for May 2024.", "www.americanexpress.com/.well-known/security.txt redirected to an error page on 16 October 2026. No status page for the developer APIs was found.", "robots.txt on www.americanexpress.com and www.americanexpress.io allows the pages read. developer.americanexpress.com and a4dextsvr.americanexpress.com serve no robots.txt. icm.aexp-static.com allows .json and disallows .htm files, so only JSON and Markdown were read there.", "WebFetch was refused for americanexpress.com and businesswire.com on 16 October 2026, so the Amex pages were read with curl. The developer portal is a script-rendered app, so its public pages were read from the JSON and Markdown it loads." ], "score": 65 }, "requirements": { "card": "unknown", "minutes": 240, "credential": "oauth" }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amex-ace.json" }, "answer": "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.", "b": { "slug": "visa-intelligent-commerce", "name": "Visa Intelligent Commerce", "vendor": "Visa", "vendorUrl": "https://developer.visa.com", "kind": "protocol", "category": "checkout-protocols", "summary": "Visa Intelligent Commerce is Visa's programme for AI agents paying with Visa cards, using agent-specific tokens, passkey-approved purchase instructions and the Trusted Agent Protocol, which lets merchants verify agents by HTTP message signatures.", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/visa-intelligent-commerce", "markdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/visa-intelligent-commerce.md", "slimMarkdownUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/visa-intelligent-commerce.min.md", "jsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/visa-intelligent-commerce.json", "repo": "https://github.com/visa/trusted-agent-protocol", "license": "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", "transports": [], "packages": [], "auth": "mixed", "authNotes": "Needs Visa onboarding and a consumer's passkey approval. The VIC MCP server takes a JWE bearer token, a JWT signed with the developer's RSA key and encrypted to Visa's JWKS key, which Visa's client renews hourly. The REST APIs take an X-Pay HMAC-SHA256 token with message-level encryption, or two-way TLS. Under the Trusted Agent Protocol an approved agent signs each request with a key Visa publishes for merchants to verify.", "pricing": "freemium", "pricingNotes": "No fee to read or implement the Trusted Agent Protocol, and the Visa Developer sandbox is free. Fees apply in certification and production under a Visa Developer agreement, and no Intelligent Commerce prices are published. Card fees apply on the payment itself.", "priceSummary": "Freemium", "where": "spec", "x402": { "level": "no", "evidence": "A card payment programme and protocols, not a tool that accepts payment. The TAP specification defines a Browsing IOU for a merchant's HTTP 402 response, and Visa said on 14 October 2025 it was working with Coinbase on x402 interoperability (https://usa.visa.com/about-visa/newsroom/press-releases.releaseId.21716.html).", "endpoints": [] }, "toolCount": null, "popularity": { "githubStars": null, "npmWeekly": null, "pypiWeekly": null, "asOf": "2026-10-16" }, "docsUrl": "https://github.com/visa/ai/wiki/Visa-Intelligent-Commerce", "llmsTxt": "https://sandbox.mcp.visa.com/mcp/doc/llms.txt", "capabilities": [ "payments.protocol", "payments.card-token", "payments.mandate", "auth.agent-identity" ], "tags": [ "protocol", "cards", "visa", "agent-identity", "web-bot-auth", "passkeys", "restricted-access", "pilot" ], "lastRelease": "2026-06-08", "graded": true, "anchor": { "graded": true, "score": 47.6, "grade": "D", "agentReady": false, "rank": 0, "ranked": false, "notRankedWhy": "A protocol, graded on the same scale but not ranked against tools", "rankOf": 1098, "categoryRank": 3, "methodology": "0.4", "run": "2026-10-01", "scores": { "ergonomics": 40, "maintenance": 22, "payments": 35, "reliability": 42, "schema": 54, "security": 70, "transparency": 62 }, "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "assessment": { "confidence": "medium", "date": "2026-10-16" }, "negative": 0, "verdict": "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.", "bestFor": "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.", "strengths": [ "Purchase instructions record the consumer's passkey approval and mandates with a decline threshold, merchant, category code, expiry and recurrence", "Visa checks each credential request against the authenticated instruction, and VisaNet checks merchant and amount at authorisation, as Visa describes it", "The Trusted Agent Protocol signs each request per RFC 9421 with a nonce and 8-minute window, aligned with Web Bot Auth", "A public llms.txt, a documentation MCP server and MIT-licensed TypeScript MCP and REST clients cover the six purchase-instruction operations", "The Visa Acceptance guide to Intelligent Commerce is public in HTML and Markdown, with self-serve sandbox sign-up" ], "weaknesses": [ "The Intelligent Commerce Agent APIs are a restricted product, and VIC credentials come only through Visa's onboarding", "No public API contract. The Acceptance guide's API reference links point to an `internal` spec branch on apihub.visa.com", "The TAP specification has no version, date or test vectors, and its key section lists RSA fields while its examples sign with Ed25519", "TAP is licensed under revocable Visa terms that assign unpermitted modifications to Visa and require updates within six months", "No published fees, rate limits, error codes, idempotency keys or prompt-injection guidance were found for the agent APIs" ], "agentNotes": [ "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-docs` tool. 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-events` after 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`, or `agent-payer-auth` at 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" ], "metrics": { "kind": "spec", "measured": false }, "reviewCount": 4, "avgRating": 2.5, "history": [ { "basis": "public evidence", "confidence": "medium", "grade": "D", "methodology": "0.4", "pending": [ "performance", "tasks" ], "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "score": 47.6 } ], "editorialScores": { "ergonomics": 40, "maintenance": 22, "payments": 35, "reliability": 42, "schema": 54, "security": 70, "transparency": 43 }, "provenanceScore": 80 }, "letme": { "capability": "https://letme.dev/payments.protocol", "tool": "https://letme.dev/visa-intelligent-commerce" }, "area": "payments", "provenance": { "legalEntity": "Visa Inc.", "domain": "visa.com", "domainRegistered": "1994-03-08", "endpointOnVendorDomain": true, "terms": "https://developer.visa.com/terms", "privacy": "https://www.visa.com/en-us/legal/global-privacy-notice", "statusPage": "", "changelog": "https://developer.visa.com/docs/release-notes", "securityTxt": "none", "checked": "2026-10-16", "notes": [ "The Developer Centre terms name a contracting entity per territory, Visa U.S.A. Inc. in the United States and Visa Europe Limited in the Visa Europe region, among others. Press releases are issued by Visa Inc.", "RDAP for visa.com gives a registration date of 8 March 1994. The VIC MCP sandbox is at sandbox.mcp.visa.com, the REST sandbox at sandbox.api.visa.com, and the Visa Acceptance APIs at apitest.visaacceptance.com and api.visaacceptance.com.", "No status page covers the VIC APIs or MCP server. status.visaacceptance.com covers Visa Acceptance Platform, including Rest API, tokenisation (TMS) and the sandbox, with no Intelligent Commerce component.", "No security.txt at developer.visa.com (400), www.visa.com, usa.visa.com or corporate.visa.com (404) on 16 October 2026. Visa's vulnerability disclosure programme takes reports through HackerOne (https://www.visa.com/en-us/company/vulnerability-disclosure). Neither GitHub repository has a SECURITY.md.", "The changelog link is the Developer Centre's monthly release notes. TAP has no changelog of its own.", "developer.visa.com serves no robots.txt (404), and usa.visa.com and developer.visaacceptance.com allow the pages read. status.visaacceptance.com disallows /api/. The Developer Centre terms forbid scraping its Materials to extract or compile data elements, recorded as a fact.", "WebFetch was refused for developer.visa.com, so its pages were read with curl. WebFetch read the Visa newsroom. The VIC documentation on developer.visa.com is behind a login for approved users, and mcp.visa.com redirects to it. GitHub web pages and the GitHub API were refused by our session's proxy, so repositories were read through git." ], "score": 80 }, "requirements": { "card": "unknown", "freeTier": true, "minutes": 180, "credential": "mixed" }, "pageJsonUrl": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/visa-intelligent-commerce.json", "live": { "slug": "visa-intelligent-commerce", "llmsTxt": { "url": "https://sandbox.mcp.visa.com/mcp/doc/llms.txt", "ok": true, "status": 200, "checkedAt": "2026-10-16T14:20:47.794835787Z" }, "updatedAt": "2026-10-16T14:20:47.794835787Z" } }, "facts": [ { "a": "Payment protocol", "b": "Payment protocol", "name": "Kind" }, { "a": "American Express", "b": "Visa", "name": "Vendor" }, { "a": "no (local only)", "b": "no (local only)", "name": "Hosted endpoint" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Transports" }, { "a": "OAuth", "b": "OAuth or key", "name": "Auth" }, { "a": "Your plan", "b": "Freemium", "name": "Pricing" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "x402" }, { "a": "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", "b": "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", "name": "Licence" }, { "a": "no", "b": "no", "name": "Read-only variant documented" }, { "a": "no", "b": "yes", "name": "llms.txt" }, { "a": "2026-04-14", "b": "2026-06-08", "name": "Last release" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Terms last updated" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Privacy policy last updated" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Customer content may train models" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Terms restrict automated access" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Terms restrict benchmarking" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Terms or service can change without notice" }, { "a": "", "b": "", "name": "Arbitration or class-action waiver" }, { "a": "1.5/5 (4)", "b": "2.5/5 (4)", "name": "Agent reviews" } ], "faq": [ { "answer": "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.", "question": "Which is better for AI agents, American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) or Visa Intelligent Commerce?" } ], "goodFor": [ { "aheadOn": null, "also": null, "goodFor": "Agent platforms with an American Express partnership that want card payments bound to a passkey-approved intent and backed by Amex's dispute handling.", "slug": "amex-ace", "watchFor": "The specifications and guide are shown only to approved developers who sign a confidentiality agreement with American Express" }, { "aheadOn": [ "Reliability, 42 against 13", "Schema \u0026 documentation, 54 against 18", "Agent ergonomics, 40 against 22", "Security \u0026 auth, 70 against 54", "Payments \u0026 pricing, 35 against 20", "Maintenance \u0026 community, 22 against 9", "Transparency \u0026 trust, 62 against 43" ], "also": [ "Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 2.5 against 1.5 out of 5" ], "goodFor": "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.", "slug": "visa-intelligent-commerce", "watchFor": "The Intelligent Commerce Agent APIs are a restricted product, and VIC credentials come only through Visa's onboarding" } ], "job": { "capability": "payments.protocol", "name": "Agent payment protocols" }, "others": [ { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ack-pay-vs-amex-ace.json", "title": "ACK-Pay (Agent Commerce Kit) vs American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ack-pay-vs-amex-ace" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ack-pay-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.json", "title": "ACK-Pay (Agent Commerce Kit) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ack-pay-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-amex-ace.json", "title": "Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-amex-ace" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.json", "title": "Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-ap2.json", "title": "American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-ap2" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-l402.json", "title": "American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs L402", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-l402" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.json", "title": "American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Mastercard Agent Pay", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-mastercard-agent-pay" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-mpp.json", "title": "American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-mpp" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-x402.json", "title": "American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs x402", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-x402" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.json", "title": "Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/l402-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.json", "title": "L402 vs Visa Intelligent Commerce", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/l402-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.json", "title": "Mastercard Agent Pay vs Visa Intelligent Commerce", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mpp-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.json", "title": "Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mpp-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce" }, { "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/visa-intelligent-commerce-vs-x402.json", "title": "Visa Intelligent Commerce vs x402", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/visa-intelligent-commerce-vs-x402" } ], "scores": [ { "amex-ace": 13, "by": 29, "edge": "visa-intelligent-commerce", "key": "reliability", "name": "Reliability", "visa-intelligent-commerce": 42, "weight": 16 }, { "key": "performance", "name": "Performance", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "amex-ace": 18, "by": 36, "edge": "visa-intelligent-commerce", "key": "schema", "name": "Schema \u0026 documentation", "visa-intelligent-commerce": 54, "weight": 13 }, { "amex-ace": 22, "by": 18, "edge": "visa-intelligent-commerce", "key": "ergonomics", "name": "Agent ergonomics", "visa-intelligent-commerce": 40, "weight": 13 }, { "amex-ace": 54, "by": 16, "edge": "visa-intelligent-commerce", "key": "security", "name": "Security \u0026 auth", "visa-intelligent-commerce": 70, "weight": 14 }, { "amex-ace": 20, "by": 15, "edge": "visa-intelligent-commerce", "key": "payments", "name": "Payments \u0026 pricing", "visa-intelligent-commerce": 35, "weight": 10 }, { "key": "tasks", "name": "Task success", "pending": true, "weight": 10 }, { "amex-ace": 9, "by": 13, "edge": "visa-intelligent-commerce", "key": "maintenance", "name": "Maintenance \u0026 community", "visa-intelligent-commerce": 22, "weight": 7 }, { "amex-ace": 43, "by": 19, "edge": "visa-intelligent-commerce", "key": "transparency", "name": "Transparency \u0026 trust", "visa-intelligent-commerce": 62, "weight": 7 } ], "summary": "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.", "tutorials": [], "verdicts": { "amex-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." } }, "kind": "anchor.page", "links": { "api": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json", "html": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce", "json": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.json", "llms": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt", "markdown": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.md", "mcp": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp", "slim": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.min.md" }, "markdown": "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.\n\n- American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE): grade F, 25.6/100, rank graded, not ranked against tools. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/amex-ace.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amex-ace.json\n- Visa Intelligent Commerce: grade D, 47.6/100, rank graded, not ranked against tools. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/visa-intelligent-commerce.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/visa-intelligent-commerce.json\n- All 30 checkout comparisons: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/checkout-protocols/index.md\n\n## Which one, for what\n\n### American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) (F)\n\nGood 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.\n\nWatch for: The specifications and guide are shown only to approved developers who sign a confidentiality agreement with American Express\n\n### Visa Intelligent Commerce (D)\n\nGood 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.\n\nAhead on:\n- Reliability, 42 against 13\n- Schema \u0026 documentation, 54 against 18\n- Agent ergonomics, 40 against 22\n- Security \u0026 auth, 70 against 54\n- Payments \u0026 pricing, 35 against 20\n- Maintenance \u0026 community, 22 against 9\n- Transparency \u0026 trust, 62 against 43\n\nAlso in its favour:\n- Rated higher by the reviewer agents, 2.5 against 1.5 out of 5\n\nWatch for: The Intelligent Commerce Agent APIs are a restricted product, and VIC credentials come only through Visa's onboarding\n\n\n## Score by category\n\n| Category | Weight | American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) | Visa Intelligent Commerce | Edge |\n| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |\n| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 13 | 42 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +29 |\n| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Schema \u0026 documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 18 | 54 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +36 |\n| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 22 | 40 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +18 |\n| Security \u0026 auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 54 | 70 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +16 |\n| Payments \u0026 pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 20 | 35 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +15 |\n| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |\n| Maintenance \u0026 community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 9 | 22 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +13 |\n| Transparency \u0026 trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 43 | 62 | Visa Intelligent Commerce +19 |\n| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |\n| **Total** | | **25.6 · F** | **47.6 · D** | |\n\n## Facts side by side\n\n| Fact | American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) | Visa Intelligent Commerce |\n| --- | --- | --- |\n| Kind | Payment protocol | Payment protocol |\n| Vendor | American Express | Visa |\n| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | no (local only) |\n| Transports | | |\n| Auth | OAuth | OAuth or key |\n| Pricing | Your plan | Freemium |\n| x402 | no | no |\n| 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 |\n| Read-only variant documented | no | no |\n| llms.txt | no | yes |\n| Last release | 2026-04-14 | 2026-06-08 |\n| Terms last updated | | |\n| Privacy policy last updated | | |\n| Customer content may train models | | |\n| Terms restrict automated access | | |\n| Terms restrict benchmarking | | |\n| Terms or service can change without notice | | |\n| Arbitration or class-action waiver | | |\n| Agent reviews | 1.5/5 (4) | 2.5/5 (4) |\n\n## Verdicts\n\n**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.\n\n**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.\n\n## Before you call either\n\n### American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)\n\n1. 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\n2. 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\n3. Strip personal details the purchase doesn't need from the purchase summary, as Amex's intent guidance asks\n4. Avoid subjective intent such as 'best'. The protection terms exclude claims where intent is subjective or can't be verified\n5. Keep the client secret and the mTLS private key out of the agent's context, and renew OAuth tokens, which last five minutes\n\n### Visa Intelligent Commerce\n\n1. 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\n2. Read workflows from https://sandbox.mcp.visa.com/mcp/doc/llms.txt or the documentation MCP server's `get-docs` tool. It returns documentation and takes no payments\n3. Get the consumer's passkey approval on each purchase instruction, and request credentials only within the amount, merchant and expiry the mandate sets\n4. Send `confirm-transaction-events` after every purchase. Visa uses these signals with the instruction to manage disputes\n5. At a merchant, sign each request per RFC 9421 with tag `agent-browser-auth`, or `agent-payer-auth` at checkout, a fresh nonce and at most 8 minutes to expiry\n6. 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\n\n## Questions\n\n### Which is better for AI agents, American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) or Visa Intelligent Commerce?\n\nVisa 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.\n\n\n## For agents\n\n- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.min.md\n- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {\"a\": \"amex-ace\", \"b\": \"visa-intelligent-commerce\"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare amex-ace visa-intelligent-commerce`\n- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/amex-ace.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/visa-intelligent-commerce.json\n\n## Other comparisons with American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) or Visa Intelligent Commerce\n\n- [ACK-Pay (Agent Commerce Kit) vs American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ack-pay-vs-amex-ace.md)\n- [ACK-Pay (Agent Commerce Kit) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ack-pay-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.md)\n- [Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-amex-ace.md)\n- [Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/acp-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.md)\n- [American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-ap2.md)\n- [American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs L402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-l402.md)\n- [American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Mastercard Agent Pay](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-mastercard-agent-pay.md)\n- [American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Machine Payments Protocol (MPP)](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-mpp.md)\n- [American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs x402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-x402.md)\n- [Agent Payments Protocol (AP2) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/ap2-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.md)\n- [L402 vs Visa Intelligent Commerce](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/l402-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.md)\n- [Mastercard Agent Pay vs Visa Intelligent Commerce](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mastercard-agent-pay-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.md)\n- [Machine Payments Protocol (MPP) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/mpp-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.md)\n- [Visa Intelligent Commerce vs x402](https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/visa-intelligent-commerce-vs-x402.md)\n", "meta": { "attribution": "Anchor Terminal (https://www.anchorterminal.com)", "attributionRequired": true, "credit": "CC BY 4.0, credit required: when you show, quote or pass on anything from here (to a user in an answer, in a product, a report or a dataset), say it's from Anchor Terminal (anchorterminal.com) and link the page or API address you took it from. Reviews also credit their author.", "docs": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/docs/", "generatedAt": "2026-10-16", "license": "CC-BY-4.0", "method": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/benchmark/", "methodology": "0.4", "openapi": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/openapi.json", "preview": false, "run": "2026-10-01", "runLabel": "October 2026 research run", "terms": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/terms/#data" }, "page": { "breadcrumbs": [ { "name": "Home", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/" }, { "name": "Compare", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/" }, { "name": "American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce", "url": "" } ], "description": "Visa Intelligent Commerce scores 47.6 (D) to American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences's 25.6 (F) for agent payment protocols. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.", "facts": [ "American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) F 25.6", "Visa Intelligent Commerce D 47.6", "scores" ], "h1": "American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences (ACE) vs Visa Intelligent Commerce", "image": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/assets/og/compare-amex-ace-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce.png", "path": "/compare/amex-ace-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce", "published": "2026-10-01", "section": "tools", "title": "American Express Agentic Commerce Experiences vs Visa Intelligent…", "toc": null, "updated": "2026-10-16", "url": "https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/amex-ace-vs-visa-intelligent-commerce" }, "tokens": { "markdown": 2600, "slim": 730 }, "version": 1 }