Block executives said Thursday they’re pleased with the initial results of their bet that artificial intelligence will make the company operate faster and more efficiently.
The company’s quarterly income report was a guidepost for gauging how the deep cuts — about 40% of employees dismissed in February — have affected Block’s financial performance.
“Internally, AI is helping us move faster and improve quality,” Block CEO Jack Dorsey wrote Thursday in a quarterly shareholder letter. “Externally, it is helping us build products that act earlier for customers and sellers.”
Block owns Cash App, a digital payments app, and the point-of-sale service Square, in addition to buy now, pay later business Afterpay.
Block’s financial state amid the restructuring was a focus for investors, who wanted to gauge the extent the AI-led reorganization would produce positive financial results, Bank of America Securities analysts wrote in an April 22 earnings preview.
The company raised its full-year guidance for gross profit, per-share earnings and adjusted operating income based on growth trends at Cash App and Square.
Block’s first quarter gross profit rose 27% over the same period of 2025 to $2.9 billion, with revenue rising about 5% to $6.1 billion, according to Block’s quarterly report on Thursday.
On a net income basis, Block lost $309 million owing to $852 million in charges it took in the quarter for restructuring and other items. In the first quarter, Block spent about $495 million for restructuring and said that expense would be largely completed by the end of June.
Cash App drove much of the gross profit, growing 38% to $1.9 billion in the first quarter on the strength of lending. Cash App’s consumer lending volume rose 82% from the same period last year, to $17.6 billion.
The huge workforce cut “does not appear to be weighing on Block in terms of its ability to execute,” Seaport Research Partners analyst Jeff Cantwell told Reuters.
Amrita Ahuja, Block’s chief financial and operating officer, said Block is at the early stage of its effort to add buy now, pay later functions to Cash App, which she called “a really massive potential for us.”
In response to an analyst’s question on how Block is accelerating product launch timelines, Owen Jennings, Block’s business lead, cited AI tools and the reorganization.
“We have smaller teams. We have flatter teams, and that’s leading to more autonomy, more flexibility, and honestly, just less red tape at Block to get things done,” Jennings said. “And we’re going to continue to push there.”
Multiple analysts noted the efficiencies’ financial impact. In a client note Thursday, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods analysts wrote that Block’s execution “appears to be on track,” with better efficiency and “limited disruption” from the reorganization so far.
“Block’s recent organizational shift toward smaller, highly skilled teams, combined with accelerated AI-driven automation appears to be gaining early traction and supports the higher 2026 earnings targets,” Oppenheimer analyst Rayna Kumar wrote in a client note.
In both the call and his letter, Dorsey highlighted Block’s work on Moneybot, a Cash App AI assistant announced in November, as critical to retaining customers and deepening their engagement with the app.
The tool is designed to detect patterns and potential financial problems for a user, such as a forgotten recurring payment or a timing mismatch between a bill’s due date and an income deposit.
“We’re seeing that when AI helps a customer take an action, they come back at much higher rates than when it only provides them with information,” Dorsey said Thursday on a conference call with analysts. He referred to these tools as “protectors,” or “systems that can help understand patterns and prompt customers or sellers to act before small issues become bigger ones.”
A second AI tool, called Managerbot, is built into Square and is designed to monitor a business’s performance. The tool handles tasks such as inventory management, staff scheduling and marketing campaigns.
Block said about one million businesses are using the tool, with an expansion to the broader U.S. Square ecosystem planned next month.
“Now that these AI tools are handling more of the mundane tasks, and we’re automating a lot more, we can focus on being a lot more creative and being a lot more innovative again,” Dorsey said.
