AmEx Touts Merchant Growth, AI Usage, And a New Business Card

Powered by international growth, American Express Co. reported early Wednesday that its merchant network now has more than 170 million locations worldwide. In his annual letter to shareholders, AmEx chairman and chief executive Stephen J. Squeri also plugged the 176-year-old company’s artificial-intelligence initiatives.

What AmEx calls its “locations in force” number includes 37 million merchants in China, which takes in merchants accessed through digital wallets. That figure compares with 31 million Chinese locations, excluding those acquired through certain payment facilitators, Squeri reported in his shareholder letter last year. AmEx books merchants directly or adds them through merchant-acquiring partners, payment facilitators, and digital wallets.

“We maintained virtual parity coverage [with the Visa and Mastercard networks] in the U.S., and merchant locations outside the U.S. have more than doubled over the last four years,” Squeri said in his latest letter. “Looking ahead, as AmEx acceptance continues to grow around the world, we expect to gain a larger share of our card members’ wallets starting from the beginning of their relationship with us.”

In January, AmEx reported that revenue from discount fees, the charge merchants pay to accept AmEx cards, hit $37.4 billion in 2025, up 6% from 2024. Discount revenue in 2025’s fourth quarter came in just shy of $10 billion, up 8% from a year earlier. Squeri noted that AmEx issued 12.5 million new proprietary cards in 2025—those issued and serviced directly by AmEx.

Squeri’s 2026 letter also discusses AmEx’s take on AI and its offspring, agentic commerce. “While agentic commerce can speed the discovery and transaction process, it will also add new layers of complexity and risk,” he wrote. “This makes managing identity, authorization, fraud risk, and liability of paramount importance for agentic commerce to be adopted broadly. The winners in this new paradigm will go well beyond basic payment functionality by offering differentiated value, service, and security.”

Several initiatives AmEx plans include an AI-powered feature in the AmEx app to aid cardholders in finding restaurants and booking travel. A developer kit coming out in April is designed to help select merchant partners integrate AmEx payments into their own agentic offerings.

AmEx is using AI to enhance the insights about cardholder spending it gets from data generated through its closed-loop merchant network. “With this deep understanding of our customers’ preferences and emerging trends, we can invest in the right areas that enhance membership value, which in turn drives strong customer demand, engagement, and retention, and delivers more business to our merchants,” Squeri wrote. “Combining our rich data and insights with advanced AI technologies will enable us to create even more value for customers with even greater personalization and proactive, contextual interactions, all while maintaining our commitment to our customers’ privacy preferences.”

The company also announced Wednesday it is launching its Graphite Business Cash Unlimited Card. It’s the first of eight new or improved products that AmEx in a news release is calling “the most significant year for commercial product expansion in company history.”

The new card comes with a $295 annual fee and offers unlimited 2% cash back on eligible purchases and 5% cash back on flights and prepaid hotel bookings through American Express Travel, and pay-over-time options.

AmEx says it is the leading issuer of cards for small businesses, claiming 4.3 million U.S. small-business customers. The company also is a major issuer of corporate cards for large companies. A corporate version of the cash-back card is among the new offerings AmEx plans for later this year.