Why is this big news? Once one network says “we cover agent errors,” the others can’t say no.

The Problem We’ve Been Waiting for a Network to Solve

For the past eighteen months, I’ve written extensively about agentic commerce as a test of *incentive alignment*, not technology. The tech works. What doesn’t work is getting all parties—networks, issuers, merchants, platforms, and payment processors—to align around who owns the agent, who owns the data, and who bears the risk.

Today, American Express did something important: it solved that problem for its own closed loop (and its customer base). What does this mean? I hope it means US Issuers will lean in on the V/MA solutions that can allow them to operate at near parity (V/MA have the rules, tech and governance). But changing a network is really hard.