- Key insight: Amex added new tools for business payments.
- What's at stake: Fintechs and technology companies are investing in AI for business clients, creating competition.
- Forward look: Amex plans to release several business focused AI tools in the next year.
With payment companies embracing frontier model makers'
"Companies want to work with someone that they know has been around," Raymond Joabar, group president of global commercial services at American Express, told American Banker.
Amex said it's planning to release new AI agents and AI-powered accounts payable workflows in the coming months. It's part of a larger push at Amex to internally deploy and externally sell automation for relatively mundane business processes that still require time and expense.
Going corporate
Amex's pending AI tools are among changes at Amex Corporate that were announced on Wednesday. The immediate changes will combine business payment cards, expense management software and an enhanced mobile app in a single product bundle.
The corporate card lets businesses earn 1.5% cash back on eligible purchases, obtain physical and virtual cards for employees, and access expense management software. The app automatically generates submission-ready expenses as purchases are made, an attempt to streamline manual expense reports for corporate travel or other purchases.
"There's a lot of administrative work, stuff that takes a lot of time and energy," Joabar said.
The business tools Amex released on Wednesday are aimed at mid-sized and large businesses; and follow an
In addition to supporting Amex's small business releases, agentic AI is also being used internally to shorten development cycles.
"What used to take quarters now takes days or weeks," Joabar said.
Selling smart
"Headline-grabbing launches like Muse will always generate pressure for other firms to keep innovating," Zil Bareisis, banking and payments director at Celent, told American Banker, noting that Meta's use of agentic AI for Muse and Amex's release are different. "In this particular case, Amex intends to deploy agentic AI more to simplify financial operations," Bareisis said. "This launch signals Amex's intention to maintain its lead in the spend and expense management category, increasingly challenged by relative newcomers, such as Ramp, Extend and many others."
Amex is fighting to maintain its position in small business cards as rivals have made headway by going beyond rewards to offer expense management and automation, saving time and administrative work for small businesses, according to Tony DeSanctis, vice president at Cornerstone Advisors.
"Amex is playing a bit of catch up here on features and functionality, certainly relative to these fintechs. Amex has the scale and resources to compete if it executes," DeSanctis told American Banker.
In a research note, analysts at William Blair said the integration of Center and related merchant-focused acquisitions is among the key revenue growth levers for Amex in 2026.
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"Concerns of AI-driven job displacement linger, but we believe technology should drive long-term economic growth, and Amex's ability to capture/retain younger customers should serve as a tailwind—baby boomer tenure is greater than 20 years," William Blair analysts said, noting that in his annual letter,
