Visa Layoffs Reflect AI And Stablecoin Pivot

Visa announced layoffs on July 28, 2026, as part of a restructuring to improve efficiency and shift resources toward AI-enabled payments, stablecoin infrastructure, and cross-border business-to-business (B2B) flows, management told staff. The move positions the company for programmable commerce.

Workforce Cuts and Strategic Rationale

Visa Inc. plans to cut about 2,600 jobs, roughly 7.0% of its global workforce, according to a staff memo from CEO Ryan McInerney. The company had approximately 34,100 employees at the end of its most recent fiscal year. The reductions will primarily affect technology and product teams, with some cuts across other functions.

Management described the restructuring as an efficiency-driven effort to free savings for reinvestment in higher-growth areas, including consumer payments, stablecoins, cross-border transactions, and B2B products. Executives said artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating how work is done and generating productivity gains that enable the restructuring, but they did not identify AI as the sole cause of the layoffs.

McInerney told staff that technological advances are creating a “once-in-a-lifetime inflection point in payments,” fundamentally changing how money moves globally. He expressed conviction that the company is making the right decisions to focus on efficiency and reinvestment in its highest-potential opportunities.

AI and Stablecoin Initiatives

At the Visa Payments Forum on June 10, 2026, Visa unveiled new AI, stablecoin, and token capabilities designed to support intelligent, programmable commerce. The company reported that stablecoin settlement pilots reached an annualized run rate of about $7 billion on VisaNet as of March 2026. Issuing banks already settle on-chain seven days a week with Visa, and work is underway to extend seven-day settlement to acquirers. Visa also has more than 160 stablecoin-linked card programs live or in development globally.

In mid-July 2026, Visa launched the Visa Stablecoin Platform (VSP), an enterprise offering that enables banks, fintechs, and crypto-native firms to mint, move, and manage stablecoins in a managed environment. The platform initially supports Open USD, a dollar-pegged stablecoin, and includes on-chain wallet infrastructure, bank mint/burn connections, approval workflows, audit logs, and integration with Visa’s network and its risk and fraud tools. VSP aims to help institutions move from exploration to implementation by embedding stablecoin flows into payment and treasury processes.