American Express is eliminating 5% of its global workforce and taking a $336 million restructuring charge, CEO Stephen Squeri told analysts on the company’s third-quarter earnings call on Friday, CNBC reported on 23 October 2026. CFO Christophe Le Caillec told CNBC in an interview that the charge was to make American Express “leaner, more agile, and also to prepare for AI.”
A restructuring charge is a one-off cost a company books when it reorganises. Reuters reported the same plan, “expected to eliminate about 5% of its global workforce,” from the post-earnings call.
Business Pill · A BUNDLE OF TASKS
A one-minute explainer of why a job is a bundle of tasks: AI usually takes over some tasks inside a job rather than the whole job. It teaches the general idea only and says nothing about American Express.
The key insight: As we read it, the new element is the stated reason: American Express’s CFO told CNBC the $336 million charge was to make the company “leaner, more agile, and also to prepare for AI,” while the CEO’s words on the call were about agility and efficiency.
The CFO on AI. “You don’t want to automate processes that are not optimally structured,” Le Caillec told CNBC. “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.”
The CEO on the call. “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,” Squeri said, according to CNBC.
The stated aim. “We believe this exercise will help us operate and execute more effectively and give us greater capacity to invest in our business priorities,” Squeri said.
The number of jobs. Squeri told Bloomberg the company plans to eliminate about 3,500 jobs, Benzinga reported. CNBC wrote that the firm had almost 77,000 employees at the end of 2025.
Figure
What it is
Source
5%
Share of the global workforce being eliminated
Squeri on the earnings call, per CNBC and Reuters
About 3,500
Jobs the company plans to eliminate
Squeri to Bloomberg, per Benzinga
$336 million
Restructuring charge taken in the third quarter
Squeri on the call, per CNBC
$253 million
The restructuring charge after tax
Benzinga
Almost 77,000
Employees at the end of 2025
CNBC
Sources: CNBC (Hugh Son), 23 October 2026; Reuters, 23 October 2026; Benzinga, 23 October 2026, citing Squeri’s comments to Bloomberg. The job count comes from one interview as relayed by Benzinga; we did not find a jobs figure in the parts of the earnings release we read.
About 3,500 jobs at American Express (Stephen Squeri to Bloomberg, as reported by Benzinga) and about 5,000 roles at Barclays (as reported by CNBC): each roughly 5% of staff, announced on 22 and 23 October 2026.Three figures: 5% of American Express’s global workforce being eliminated and a $336 million restructuring charge (Stephen Squeri on the earnings call, as reported by CNBC), then about 3,500 jobs (Squeri to Bloomberg, as reported by Benzinga), 23 October 2026.
How the Charge Sits in the Quarter
Benzinga reported that American Express recorded a $253 million after-tax restructuring charge and a $751 million after-tax gain from selling its stake in Global Business Travel Group. The earnings release says adjusted earnings exclude that gain, “net of a restructuring charge.”
Benzinga wrote that the restructuring aims to reduce management layers, simplify operations and accelerate decision-making. The stock fell on Friday even as the company reported better-than-expected third-quarter earnings and raised the lower end of its full-year profit outlook, according to Benzinga.
Barclays Made a Similar Cut a Day Earlier
CNBC set the move against Barclays, which on Thursday confirmed plans to trim 5,000 jobs, “also roughly 5% of its staff,” in another tech-driven cost initiative. CNBC wrote that the announcement “reflects a broader trend across financial services, where banks are working to replace repetitive roles with AI automation,” and that the moves come as the sector enjoys robust profits from growing consumer spending and resilient credit.
As we read it, the CFO’s wording sets the order of operations: fewer layers first, then automation. Le Caillec said the company does not want to automate processes that are not optimally structured.
Connecting the Coverage
Earlier today, our AmEx results piece reported record third-quarter revenue of $20.1 billion and a release that lists Resy integrations, including with OpenAI, among the quarter’s highlights. Our Barclays piece reported a results slide that says its roughly 5,000 cuts impact “c.5% of employees.” And our China AI jobs piece covered guidelines that set out 18 tasks to make AI adoption more employment-friendly. What’s new: American Express’s CFO ties a 5% workforce cut to preparing for AI.
The Structural Read
As we read it, the sequence matters more than the headcount: Le Caillec said “You don’t want to automate processes that are not optimally structured,” so the layers come out before the automation goes in.
As we read it, the cut lands in a strong quarter: Benzinga reported the company beat earnings estimates and raised the lower end of its full-year outlook, and CNBC wrote that the sector is enjoying robust profits from growing consumer spending and resilient credit.
As we read it, two card and banking firms announced a similar share of staff in two days: Barclays about 5,000 roles and American Express about 5% of its workforce, each roughly 5% of staff according to CNBC.
Christophe Le Caillec, CFO of American Express, to CNBC, 23 October 2026
“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.”
Three Implications
FOR CARD NETWORKS AND BANKS CNBC wrote that banks are working to replace repetitive roles with AI automation; American Express and Barclays each named a cut of roughly 5% of staff this week.
FOR EMPLOYEES The reports we read do not say which roles, countries or units are affected; Le Caillec described reducing layers and increasing spans of control.
FOR INVESTORS Benzinga reported a $253 million after-tax restructuring charge alongside a $751 million after-tax gain from the GBTG stake sale in the same quarter.
The framework says “The constraint is access to systems, management expectations, workforce skill, and review processes”, the complements around the model.
As we read it, Le Caillec’s point that processes must be restructured before they are automated sits on that list of complements. The framework was published in July 2026 and is about agent adoption inside companies; it does not discuss American Express or this restructuring.
What Is Not Established
The reports we read do not say which roles, countries or business units are affected, or over what period the cuts will happen. The figure of about 3,500 jobs comes from Squeri’s comments to Bloomberg as relayed by Benzinga; we did not read Bloomberg’s article, and 5% of almost 77,000 would be closer to 3,850, by our arithmetic, so the two counts may rest on different headcount dates.
The reports we read do not say how much of the work will be automated. We did not contact American Express. Nothing here is investment advice.
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American Express is eliminating 5% of its global workforce with a $336 million restructuring charge, and its CFO told CNBC the aim is to be leaner, more agile and to prepare for AI. Barclays announced a cut of a similar share of staff a day earlier.
A note on sourcing. This piece is based on CNBC’s report of 23 October 2026, Reuters’ report of the same day, Benzinga’s report citing Squeri’s comments to Bloomberg, and American Express’s third-quarter earnings release, all read in full where available, and on our own earlier pieces. We did not read Bloomberg’s article and did not contact American Express. Nothing here is investment advice.
Gennaro Cuofano is a CRO and tech executive who has worked in AI since late 2015, starting with bringing NLP, natural-language generation, voice and chatbot products to the marketing industry. His background is in law and finance: he holds a Master's degree in Law and an International MBA with an emphasis on corporate finance (LUISS Business School and the University of San Diego, 2012), and worked as a financial analyst at a real-estate investment firm in San Diego and as an assistant controller. His work focuses on business model strategy, business engineering and, more broadly, structural analysis: how companies make money, read from their own filings. He created FourWeekMBA and leads research there and at The Business Engineer, his newsletter on AI and business strategy, with over 95,000 subscribers and more than 1,000 published analyses. His writing has also appeared on Entrepreneur (for example, How to Digitize a Family Business in Europe) and HackerNoon. Find him on LinkedIn and Substack. See how we source.
