Amex posted a record quarter — then announced it's cutting 3,500 jobs to get ready for AI

The quarter

American Express had its best kind of quarter and announced job cuts anyway. The company reported third-quarter revenue of $20.1 billion, up 9 per cent from a year earlier — a record — and net income of $3.7 billion, up 28 per cent, according to its earnings release filed with the SEC on October 23. Adjusted earnings per share were $4.68, topping the $4.48 average analyst estimate, according to LSEG. Billed business — Amex's measure of cardmember spending — rose 8 per cent to $454 billion. The company raised its full-year adjusted earnings guidance to $17.60 to $17.90 per share, up from $17.30 to $17.90, and maintained its expectation of about 10 per cent revenue growth for 2026.

The cuts

On the earnings call, CEO Stephen Squeri told analysts the company is eliminating about 5 per cent of its global workforce, CNBC and Reuters reported. With roughly 78,000 employees — a figure Squeri gave Bloomberg Television — that works out to about 3,500 jobs. The company booked a $336 million pretax restructuring charge, $253 million after tax, for what it called efficiency initiatives. The company has not said which countries, teams or offices will lose jobs, or when workers will be told. The stock fell about 4 per cent on the news, trading near $313 by midday Friday.

The AI rationale

The reason, per management, is artificial intelligence — though not in the way the headline suggests. Chief financial officer Christophe Le Caillec told CNBC the restructuring aims to make Amex "leaner, more agile, and also to prepare for AI." "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." In other words: flatten the organization first, then let automation absorb the work as it arrives. The company has not said AI is replacing the eliminated roles today. Squeri devoted roughly ten minutes of his prepared remarks to AI, focusing on personalizing experiences and offers for cardholders — while adding Amex is "not going to let assistants run rogue through our system," with only approved AI agents allowed to access its systems via API or MCP channels. Amex is the second big financial company this week to cut jobs while posting profits: Barclays announced about 5,000 cuts on October 22.

The Canadian angle

Amex is a major player in Canada's premium card market, and the signal travels north. Canadian banks and financial firms have been trimming costs through 2026, and Amex's move — cutting into strength, not weakness — is a template Wall Street may reward: restructure while profits are fat so automation can do more with fewer layers later. For Canadian cardholders, the immediate question is whether the restructuring touches customer service or product perks; Amex has been refreshing cards and adding perks, including an Airbnb partnership for lodging credits, to defend against what Squeri called "highly competitive" pressure for premium customers. What it means for Canadian workers: the company hasn't said where the 3,500 cuts fall, and Canadian operations could be in the mix — workers there will learn when the rest of the company does.