AmEx cuts 5% of staff in $336 million AI restructuring

American Express framed the reorganization as a precondition for automation rather than a simple cost cut. CFO Christophe Le Caillec told CNBC that "you don't want to automate processes that are not optimally structured," describing the layoffs as a way to reduce layers and increase spans of control before deploying AI in the coming quarters and years. CEO Stephen Squeri said the company has "good momentum" but needed to become a more agile and efficient organization to accelerate innovation.

The move lands alongside other AI-driven reductions in finance. Barclays announced 5,000 planned job cuts in its own AI push, and AI has been cited in more than 120,000 job cut announcements so far this year through September, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Investors read the American Express layoffs as another example of AI's potential to eliminate jobs, sending shares down more than 3%.

American Express paired the cuts with strong results: adjusted earnings per share of $4.68 beat expectations, and it raised its full-year earnings forecast to $18.30 to $18.60 a share, helped by its sale of a stake in Global Business Travel Group. Squeri also set boundaries on how AI will be used, saying the company is "not going to let assistants run rogue through our system" and will allow agents to access its systems only through approved API or MCP channels.