American Express will cut about 5% of its global workforce and record a $336M restructuring charge to become leaner for artificial intelligence. Chief executive Stephen Squeri disclosed the move on an earnings call, while revenue rose 9% to a record $20.1bn. The bank will serve customers who shop with AI agents, but only through approved connections, which matters because payment networks now set the rules for agent-led commerce.
Restructuring charge and workforce reduction
Amex employed almost 77,000 people at the end of 2025, so a 5% reduction implies close to 3,800 positions. Chief financial officer Christophe Le Caillec linked the restructuring directly to AI preparation and to making the company leaner and more agile. He said Amex did not want to automate poorly structured processes, describing the plan as reducing layers and increasing spans of control. Squeri framed the $336M charge as a step to accelerate innovation and win over the next few years. Part of the cost was covered by a $982M pre-tax gain from selling the stake in Global Business Travel Group.
Financial results for the quarter remained strong despite the charge and a share decline. Net income rose 28% to $3.7bn, including the gain from the travel-group stake sale. Adjusted earnings per share reached $4.68, above the $4.48 average estimate cited from LSEG data. Revenue of $20.1bn was slightly below the expected $20.12bn. Amex raised full-year guidance to $18.30 to $18.60 per share, while shares fell roughly 4% in Friday afternoon trading.
The cuts fit a wider reduction of banking headcount reported across large lenders. A day earlier Barclays confirmed plans to cut 5,000 jobs, also about 5% of staff. In May, the six largest Wall Street banks together reported 15,000 job cuts. Squeri devoted about 10 minutes of prepared remarks to AI, focused largely on personalising experiences and offers for card members. Google announced its own agent-led payments plans in May. Against that background, Amex presented efficiency and controlled agent access as parallel priorities.
What controlled agent access means for business
For companies that accept cards or sell through digital channels, Amex signals that AI agents will become buyers but on network terms. Squeri said the company must protect customers and merchants and will allow only agents that connect through approved API or MCP channels. MCP, or Model Context Protocol, is a second standard way for outside software to link to corporate systems. On 13 October Amex published its Intent Intelligence framework for confirming what a customer wants before an agent completes a purchase. Merchants therefore gain a clearer path for agent orders without opening internal systems to uncontrolled software.
That control comes with integration work and unresolved operational questions. Businesses will need to check which agent platforms Amex approves, what data an API or MCP connection exposes, and how intent confirmation appears at checkout. The announcement does not by itself guarantee higher conversion or lower fraud, nor does it specify timelines for merchant onboarding. Firms should ask how disputes are handled when an agent misinterprets instructions and what logging proves customer consent. Until those terms are public, agent acceptance remains a vendor-dependent project rather than a turnkey channel.
The marker to watch is publication of approved API and MCP access terms and the first live agent transactions under Intent Intelligence. If merchants and agent providers adopt the framework and dispute rates stay contained, controlled agent commerce will move from policy to volume. If adoption stalls or stays limited to pilots, banks will keep cutting layers while agent payments remain experimental. The next earnings disclosures on AI usage and transaction mix will show which outcome is taking hold.
