AIBRIEF
The 7% workforce cut targets Visa's technology and product teams; the company says AI is one driver, not the only one, as it scales stablecoin based payment settlement.
Visa is cutting roughly 2,600 jobs, about 7% of its global workforce, with the reductions concentrated in its technology and product teams. Visa says the reductions are an efficiency program tied to "changing customer demands" and "evolving payment technologies," and that AI is one factor in the cuts, not the sole cause (infotechlead).
The layoffs land the same quarter Visa disclosed a $7 billion annual run rate in stablecoin settlement, up more than 50% quarter over quarter, and nearly 200% year-over-year growth in stablecoin card volume. The company expanded its settlement network from four to nine blockchains by adding Arc, Base, Canton, Polygon, and Tempo (Bloomberg).
Visa employed 34,100 people at the end of 2025, an 8% year-over-year increase, so this is a pullback from a recent peak rather than a long contraction. Value-added services, including AI-driven fraud and security tools, now generate 30% of net revenue and are growing more than 25% in constant dollars. The company's Large Transaction Model has shown up to 5x improvement in fraud-value capture in early deployments (CNBC).
Open at filing: how the 2,600 roles split between technology and product, and whether any of the affected workers are being redeployed or backfilled into the new AI and stablecoin product lines.