{"id":27341,"date":"2026-04-07T16:54:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:54:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=27341"},"modified":"2026-04-07T16:54:01","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:54:01","slug":"bolt-lays-off-a-third-of-its-employees-citing-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/?p=27341","title":{"rendered":"Bolt lays off a third of its employees, citing AI"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<ul>\n<li>Key insight: The payments fintech Bolt laid off about 30% of its staff last week, the latest in a series of workforce cuts over the past several years.<\/li>\n<li>What&#8217;s at stake: Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow cited AI as the &#8220;driving force&#8221; behind the layoff decision, like Jack Dorsey did for Block&#8217;s 40% reduction in staff earlier this year.<\/li>\n<li>Supporting data: Bolt initially laid off about 30% of its employees in May 2022, then 10% of its workforce in Jan. 2023 and another 30% in Dec. 2023.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Bolt Financial, a one-click checkout provider, has laid off a third of its remaining employees.<\/p>\n<p>Processing Content<\/p>\n<p>The fintech, founded to provide payments software for e-commerce merchants, confirmed with American Banker that it laid off approximately 30% of its current workforce last week. The company did not disclose the exact number of employees affected, but stated that it was &#8220;less than 40 people.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Going forward, Bolt will be operating as a much leaner organization and leveraging AI at our core,&#8221; Ryan Breslow, Bolt&#8217;s founder and recently-returned CEO, told employees in an internal message verified by American Banker. &#8220;Developing products and operating in 2026 is very different than it was in prior years, and we need to adapt as an organization to be leaner and more AI-centric than ever to keep [up] with competition.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In response to a request for comment, a Bolt representative told American Banker that the decision was made from &#8220;a place of strength&#8221; and that AI was the primary driving force behind the workforce reduction.<\/p>\n<p>The layoffs were first reported by Jason Mikula of <ps-link><a href=\"https:\/\/fintechbusinessweekly.substack.com\/p\/bolt-bloodbath-one-third-of-staff\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>Fintech Business Weekly<\/u><\/a><\/ps-link>.<\/p>\n<p>Recent findings in American Banker&#8217;s 2026 AI Talent Shift Survey indicate that AI-driven layoffs do occur, but are not a significant share of the overall impact of AI on financial services. Only 3% of survey respondents, which included banks, credit unions, neobanks and payments processors, reported that workforce reductions were part of AI&#8217;s overall impact at their offices.<\/p>\n<div class=\"Enhancement\" data-align-center=\"\">\n<div class=\"Enhancement-item\">\n<div class=\"RawHtml\" data-module-mame=\"ai-workforce-chart-for-bolt\">\n<div class=\"flourish-embed flourish-chart\" data-src=\"https:\/\/www.americanbanker.com\/news\/visualisation\/28409184?1792826\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>This round of layoffs is the most recent of several for the fintech since 2022. Bolt initially laid off about 30% of its employees in <ps-link><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2022-05-25\/bolt-layoffs-hit-fintech-startup?sref=Hhue1scO#xj4y7vzkg\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>May 2022<\/u><\/a><\/ps-link>, though the company did not confirm exactly how many people were impacted at the time. The fintech also let go of 10% of its workforce in <ps-link><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theinformation.com\/articles\/bolt-ceo-cuts-staff-a-third-time-as-revenue-lags\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>Jan. 2023<\/u><\/a><\/ps-link> and another 30% of its remaining employees in <ps-link><a href=\"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2023\/12\/14\/one-click-checkout-bolt-another-round-of-layoffs\/\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>Dec. 2023<\/u><\/a><\/ps-link>.<\/p>\n<p>Bolt launched an all-in-one financial services app in April of last year that combines crypto and everyday payments into a centralized platform. Breslow <ps-link><u>told<\/u><\/ps-link> American Banker at the time that the company&#8217;s goal for years was to build a &#8220;super app&#8221; for financial services in the U.S.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Bolt&#8217;s most recent funding round closed in Jan. 2022 after raising <ps-link><a href=\"https:\/\/www.prnewswire.com\/news-releases\/bolt-raises-355-million-in-series-e-funding-with-funds--accounts-managed-by-blackrock-as-well-as-schonfeld-hig-growth-and-invus-opportunities--powering-the-next-phase-of-growth-in-the-commerce-race-301461274.html\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>$355 million<\/u><\/a><\/ps-link> from investors such as BlackRock and Schonfeld. The Series E round brought Bolt&#8217;s total funding to nearly $1 billion.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The company reportedly attempted to raise another <ps-link><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theinformation.com\/articles\/bolt-near-deal-to-raise-450-million-at-14-billion-valuation\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>$450 million<\/u><\/a><\/ps-link> in 2024 in connection with Breslow&#8217;s return as CEO, but the funding round ultimately stalled due to <ps-link><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/iainmartin\/2024\/09\/04\/restraining-orders-and-dumbfounded-investors-ryan-breslows-450-million-bolt-round-in-chaos\/\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>legal challenges<\/u><\/a><\/ps-link>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Bolt declined to comment on whether the company is currently raising any funding.<\/p>\n<p>Breslow told American Banker that he came &#8220;back home&#8221; to his position as CEO in early 2025. He originally stepped down as CEO in early 2022 after leading Bolt for eight years and making Forbes&#8217;s <ps-link><a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/30-under-30\/2019\/retail-ecommerce\/#3891c5db5f83\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><u>30 Under 30<\/u><\/a><\/ps-link> list in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Bolt is the latest fintech company to cite AI as a driving factor in recent workforce cuts. Block has also laid off a large percentage of its workforce over the past three years, most recently with a round of layoffs that impacted <ps-link><u>40%<\/u><\/ps-link> of its staff. Block CEO Jack Dorsey also cited AI as a factor in the decision.<\/p>\n<p>Some experts have predicted a <ps-link><u>trend<\/u><\/ps-link> in AI-driven layoffs, in line with Block&#8217;s and Bolt&#8217;s announcements. Others, like Cornerstone Advisors senior director Tony DeSanctis, are less certain. He believes that Block&#8217;s reductions in staff were as much about a Covid-driven <ps-link><u>overhiring<\/u><\/ps-link> over the last few years as it was about AI.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My guess is that Bolt is in a similar situation, especially given the challenges in the crypto market,&#8221; he told American Banker. &#8220;My guess is this is more about a rightsizing of staff than a massive benefit they are deriving from AI. I find it highly unlikely they were able to eliminate 30% of the workforce simply from AI efficiencies.&#8221;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanbanker.com\/news\/bolt-lays-off-a-third-of-its-employees-citing-ai\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key insight: The payments fintech Bolt laid off about 30% of its staff last week, the latest in a series of workforce cuts over the past several years. What&#8217;s at stake: Bolt CEO Ryan Breslow cited AI as the &#8220;driving force&#8221; behind the layoff decision, like Jack Dorsey did for Block&#8217;s 40% reduction in staff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27342,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_lock_modified_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[218],"tags":[10102,3537,2524,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-27341","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-banking","8":"tag-bolt","9":"tag-citing","10":"tag-employees","11":"tag-lays"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/finderica.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}