American Express will cut about 3,500 jobs (~4.5% of ~78,000 employees worldwide) as part of a restructuring amid intensified competition and increased industry use of artificial intelligence, disclosed with Q3 earnings Oct. 23, 2026.
CEO Stephen Squeri: goal is a more agile, efficient organization to accelerate innovation. Managers were asked this year to identify operational improvements; few details on which roles or geographies.
Competition: JPMorgan Chase, Visa, Mastercard in premium cards; Brex and Ramp (with AI agents) in commercial cards — Brex acquired by Capital One; Capital One also bought Discover.
Squeri emphasized customer-facing AI (personalized Resy restaurant services, ChatGPT pitches for travel) more than internal automation. Q3 billed business +8% FX-adjusted to 3.71B; revenue +9% to 336M; also OCC $350M AML penalty and travel business sale gain noted.
Partnerships with Bread Financial and Synchrony to reach lower-income segments; Squeri avoids big-bank alliances that failed historically.