Visa is cutting 2,600 jobs, and its chief executive's memo says AI is shaping the way work gets done

Visa told staff on 28 July 2026 that it will eliminate about 2,600 positions, roughly 7 percent of its 34,100 employees, mostly in its technology and product teams, in a memo from chief executive Ryan McInerney first reported by Bloomberg and confirmed by CNBC. The memo frames the cut as efficiency to fund reinvestment, and names AI as part of how the work is changing: "To capture the opportunities ahead and best position Visa to lead this transformation, we must continue evolving how we work," McInerney wrote. "AI is also helping to accelerate this evolution and shape the way work gets done at Visa." A person with direct knowledge told CNBC that AI "played a significant role" in the layoffs but was not the sole driver; Visa also wants to put more into affluent customers, cross-border payments, business payments, stablecoins and geographic expansion. Affected employees were contacted from 29 July. The company has not said how many of the cuts fall in the Bay Area, and it announced the cut on the day it reported quarterly earnings. Visa's is the largest AI-linked cut at a payments company since PayPal's 4,760, and it lands on the same teams, engineers and product staff, whose work the chief executive says AI is now reshaping.