Ahead of earnings, Amex adds more tools to feed its AI plans

• Key insights: Amex agreed to buy Hypercard, a provider of AI for expense management. 
• What's at stake: The deal will help Amex build its agentic commerce strategy as it competes with other large payment companies and fintechs. 
• Forward look: Amex posts earnings April 23, with analysts expecting a strong report despite geopolitical worries. 

As payment companies scale artificial intelligence through the use of open protocols and acquisitions, American Express is quickly stacking tools to offer agentic commerce to businesses.

A few days after launching a developer's tool kit for agentic commerce, American Express agreed to a deal to buy Hypercard, a company that uses agentic AI to manage business expenses. Terms weren't disclosed, and the deal is expected to close in the second quarter.  

Hypercard is financially backed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, former Mastercard CEO Gene Lockhard, Netflix co-founder Mark Randolf, and One Medical founder Tom Lee, among others. Separately, OpenAI made an acquisition of its own this week, agreeing to acquire personal finance app Hiro.

Hypercard, which was founded in 2022, develops AI agents that categorize and file corporate expenses, check expense reports for compliance and policy and communicate with users about submissions and progress. Amex has partnered with Hypercard in the past, issuing an AI-powered payment card aimed at corporate clients in 2024. 

Amex did not comment by deadline. "Our customers want smarter, more efficient ways to manage expenses so they can focus on what's next for their business, and AI has the potential to transform the way businesses get things done," said Raymond Joabar, group president of Global Commercial Services at American Express, in a press release.

Amex's Hypercard is the second major AI-related move Amex has made in recent days. Amex's  developer's tool kit includes agent registration and verification, account enablement for consumers to register their cards for agentic transactions, intent analysis, verification of payment credentials and context of the digital shopping cart as an added risk management measure. It's also compatible with agentic AI protocols from Google and other technology companies. Agentic commerce broadly refers to using nonhuman AI agents to perform tasks with little or no supervision.

"While agentic commerce can speed the discovery and transaction process, it will also add new layers of complexity and risk. This makes managing identity, authorization, fraud risk, and liability of paramount importance for agentic commerce to be adopted broadly," Amex CEO Steve Squeri said in his most recent investor letter, issued March 25. "As AI agents become more prevalent, we believe consumers will increasingly make their payment selections based on who they trust and who can deliver incremental value across rewards, offers, experiences and access. Businesses will look to benefit from agentic applications that enable the seamless integration of supplier payments, invoicing, expense management, and cross-border flows."

Other payment companies, including PayPal, Block, Visa and Mastercard, are also building products for agentic commerce, mixing internal usage for employees with client-facing uses similar to Amex — enabling clients to perform complicated but mundane tasks easily. In most cases, the goal is to enable e-commerce shopping and payments, and the use of loyalty and rewards, through agentic AI.

"Among the many battlegrounds for market dominance, in agentic commerce, payments is garnering much investment with traditional financial card players vying for pole position," said Celent co-generative AI research lead Alenka Grealish in a research note. 

Amex's other business-related AI initiatives include a $300 ChatGPT business credit for U.S. business platinum and gold cards, and AI-powered insights for corporate customers to measure spending, leveraging data across cards, expenses, accounts payable, and other information. The new business tools follow an earlier Amex acquisition of business technology company Center in 2025.

Amex's AI moves, which are largely aimed at boosting the company's business payment unit, come shortly before its next earnings report, which is scheduled for April 23 before the market opens. 

Zacks Investment Research projects Amex will post quarterly earnings of $4.01 per share, up 10.2% from the prior year, and revenue of  $18.62 billion, up 9.7% from the year-ago quarter.

"Card issuers have guided toward slower loan growth in general, given the macro and elevated payment rates," Jeffries said in a research note on Amex. "Amex's super-prime customer base appears to be relatively unaffected by geopolitical uncertainty and inflation thus far."