American Express Is Cutting 5% of Its Workforce to 'Prepare for AI' While Its Profits Beat Wall Street

American Express just had a good quarter. It beat profit estimates, raised its full year guidance, and on the same call told analysts it will eliminate about 5 percent of its global workforce. The company had almost 77,000 employees at the end of 2025, so the cut works out to roughly 3,800 people, and the reason management gave was AI, not a downturn.

Flatten first, automate next

CEO Stephen Squeri announced the cuts on Friday's third quarter earnings call, along with a $336 million restructuring charge. "We've got good momentum, but to accelerate innovation and win over the next few years, we needed to become [a] more agile and efficient organization," he said.

CFO Christophe Le Caillec was even more direct. He told CNBC the restructuring is meant to make Amex "leaner, more agile, and also to prepare for AI."

Then he laid out the playbook. "You don't want to automate processes that are not optimally structured," he said. "So what we're doing here is to reduce layers and increase spans of controls, so that we can automate and take advantage of AI in the coming quarters and the coming years."

Put plainly: strip out layers of management, give the remaining bosses more people to oversee, and then hand the cleaned up processes to software. The layoffs are step one of an automation plan, not a reaction to weak results.

The numbers that paid for it

The results gave Amex room to do it. Adjusted earnings came in at $4.68 a share against the $4.48 analysts expected. Full year guidance rose to $18.30 to $18.60 per share unadjusted, up from $17.30 to $17.90.

Part of that boost came from selling its stake in Global Business Travel Group, and part of those proceeds will fund the restructuring. Revenue rose 9 percent to $20.06 billion, slightly short of the $20.12 billion forecast, which executives blamed on exiting small business co-brand partnerships. Shares fell roughly 4 percent in afternoon trading.

AI for customers, guardrails for agents

Squeri spent a 10 minute section of his prepared remarks on AI, mostly on personalizing experiences and offers for cardholders. He also drew a line on outside AI agents. Amex is "not going to let assistants run rogue through our system," he said, and will only allow agents "that are either approved through API or MCP channels." That puts Amex in line with other big banks locking out AI agents that log in with customer credentials.

Not just Amex

The timing is hard to ignore. A day earlier, Barclays confirmed it will cut 5,000 jobs, also roughly 5 percent of staff, in a technology driven cost push.

Both companies are cutting from a position of strength. The sector is enjoying robust profits on the back of consumer spending and resilient credit. What Amex added was a candid description of the method: shrink the org chart while the money is good, so the machines have a tidier place to move in.

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