What They Did
Visa runs the world's largest card payments network, connecting billions of cardholders, millions of merchants, and thousands of banks. It is one of the most profitable companies in the world, with roughly 34,100 employees at the end of fiscal 2025 after headcount grew 8% that year.
How LLMs Killed Them
Visa is not a company in trouble, which is what makes its cuts notable. On July 28, 2026, alongside quarterly net revenue of $11.6 billion (up 14%) and earnings that beat estimates, it said it would cut about 2,600 jobs, roughly 7% of its workforce, mostly in technology and product teams. CEO Ryan McInerney called it an efficiency push, but he also said "AI is also helping to accelerate this evolution and shape the way work gets done at Visa." He described product teams shrinking from about ten people to two to four, working with AI agents rather than assistants: "We are going beyond AI assistants... We are able to design, build and ship products with increased velocity." The cuts carry a $563 million severance charge, and the savings go into stablecoins, digital wallets, payment orchestration, and commercial payments. McInerney stressed that AI was not the only reason. But a record-profit payments company cutting the engineers who build its products, while describing smaller AI-assisted teams, fits the 2026 pattern closely.
Timeline
- Fiscal 2025: Headcount rose 8% to about 34,100.
- January 2026: Rival Mastercard said it would cut about 4% of its workforce.
- July 28, 2026: Visa announced about 2,600 job cuts (~7%) on its earnings call, mainly in technology and product teams.
- July 2026: Disclosed a $563M severance charge; savings redirected to stablecoin, wallet, and commercial payment products.
By the Numbers
- ~2,600 jobs cut — about 7% of the workforce
- $563M in severance costs
- Product teams cut from about 10 people to 2–4
- Announced in a quarter with $11.6B in net revenue, up 14%