Visa plans to eliminate roughly 2,600 positions, about 7% of its workforce, as CEO Ryan McInerney pushes to streamline the payments giant and redirect resources toward growth areas shaped by artificial intelligence.
McInerney laid out the cuts in an internal memo, first reported by Bloomberg and confirmed by CNBC through a person with direct knowledge of the matter. The reductions fall mostly on technology and product operations, the very teams that built the infrastructure now being reshaped by AI tools. Impacted employees were set to be contacted on Tuesday for next steps and transition assistance.
Visa, which runs the world's largest payments network, had approximately 34,100 employees at the end of its last fiscal year. A 7% cut at that scale means entire teams disappearing, not a light trim. And the timing was no accident: Visa scheduled its quarterly earnings report for the same Tuesday, after market close, burying the layoff news under a wave of financial data.
The CEO's memo cast the workforce reduction as a forward-looking move, not a sign of trouble. McInerney told employees the company had built real momentum and needed to keep changing how it operates.
"To capture the opportunities ahead and best position Visa to lead this transformation, we must continue evolving how we work."
He pointed directly to artificial intelligence as a catalyst. In the memo, McInerney wrote that "AI is also helping to accelerate this evolution and shape the way work gets done at Visa." The unnamed source who confirmed the memo's contents told CNBC that the company intends to reinvest in areas like affluent customers, cross-border activity, business payments, stablecoins, and geographic expansion.
That language, "evolving," "transformation," "new era", is the kind of corporate polish that softens what is, for 2,600 people, a pink slip. McInerney also wrote that "as a result of the choices we have made over the past few years, we are entering a new era in commerce with a business that has real momentum." The choices he referenced were not specified. The momentum, apparently, does not extend to the workers who helped build it.
Visa's move fits a pattern now visible across both the private sector and the federal government: organizations citing efficiency, modernization, or AI adoption as justification for large-scale workforce reductions. The employees who lose their jobs are rarely the executives who approved the strategy.
The federal government has followed a parallel track. The State Department fired more than 1,300 employees on July 11, 2025, as part of the Trump administration's reorganization plan. That round hit 1,107 civil servants and 246 foreign service officers, with the department aiming for an 18% reduction in U.S.-based staff. Secretary of State Marco Rubio framed the cuts in terms similar to McInerney's, not personal, just structural. Rubio told AP News, "It's not a consequence of trying to get rid of people. But if you close the bureau, you don't need those positions."
The State Department's reorganization plan, submitted to Congress in May, called for scrapping roughly 300 divisions and offices. Foreign service officers affected were placed on 120-day administrative leave before formally losing their jobs. Civil servants faced a 60-day separation period. The American Foreign Service Association warned that "losing more diplomatic expertise at this critical global moment is a catastrophic blow to our national interests," the New York Post reported.
Whether in Foggy Bottom or a Visa office park, the pattern is the same: leadership decides the organization can do more with fewer people, and the people who remain get to find out if that's true.
The internal memo left major questions unanswered. Visa did not disclose which specific teams within technology and product operations face the deepest cuts. The company did not say whether any of the 2,600 positions would be eliminated through attrition or whether all are active terminations. No details on severance packages appeared in the memo. No geographic breakdown was provided, meaning workers in every Visa office worldwide are left guessing.
Visa also did not specify which AI tools or systems are replacing the roles being cut. That gap matters. "AI is reshaping how work gets done" is a boardroom talking point. Which jobs, replaced by which systems, producing which measurable gains, that is the information employees and shareholders actually need. Visa has not provided it.
The company's decision to announce the layoffs on the same day as its quarterly earnings report raises its own questions. Bundling bad news for workers with financial results for investors is a well-worn corporate tactic. It ensures the earnings call dominates the news cycle, not the layoffs.
When a company worth hundreds of billions tells 2,600 workers that AI has made their roles unnecessary, the least it owes them is a specific explanation, not a memo full of buzzwords about transformation and momentum. The workers built the momentum. They deserve more than a Tuesday phone call and a transition packet.