American Express cuts 5% of staff and won’t let AI agents ‘run rogue’

American Express is cutting about 5% of its global workforce and taking a $336M restructuring charge. Chief executive Stephen Squeri told analysts about the cuts on Friday, CNBC’s Hugh Son reported.

The company had almost 77,000 employees at the end of 2025, according to CNBC. Chief financial officer Christophe Le Caillec told CNBC the restructuring was to prepare for AI. It would also make Amex “leaner, more agile”, he said.

“You don’t want to automate processes that are not optimally structured. So what we’re doing here is to reduce layers and increase spans of controls.” Christophe Le Caillec, American Express, to CNBC

Squeri told analysts the charge was about efficiency.

“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.” Stephen Squeri, American Express, on the earnings call

The Amex job cuts came a day after Barclays confirmed plans to cut 5,000 jobs, also about 5% of its staff. In May, Wall Street’s six largest banks reported 15,000 job cuts between them.

AI agents, through approved channels only

Squeri spent about 10 minutes of his prepared remarks on AI, CNBC reported. Most of it was about using AI to personalise experiences and offers for card members.

He said Amex wants to serve customers who use AI agents. But it will not let assistants “run rogue” through its systems.

“We need to protect our customers [and] merchants, and we’re only going to allow agents to access our systems that are either approved through API or MCP channels.” Stephen Squeri, American Express

APIs and MCP (Model Context Protocol) are two ways for outside software to connect to a company’s systems. On 13 October, Amex published its Intent Intelligence framework. It sets out how to confirm what a customer wants to buy before an AI agent completes the purchase. Google announced its own agent-led payments plans in May.

The quarter

Revenue rose 9% to a record $20.1bn, Amex said in its earnings release. That was slightly below the $20.12bn analysts expected, according to LSEG data cited by CNBC. Adjusted earnings per share were $4.68, above the $4.48 average estimate.

Net income rose 28% to $3.7bn. It includes a $982M pre-tax gain from selling Amex’s stake in Global Business Travel Group. Part of that gain paid for the restructuring. Amex raised its full-year guidance to $18.30 to $18.60 a share.

The shares fell roughly 4% in Friday afternoon trading, CNBC reported.