SAN JOSE/PALO ALTO — In a stunning double-announcement on Tuesday, tech veteran Enrique Lores has resigned as the President and CEO of HP Inc.
The Move to PayPal
PayPal’s Board of Directors appointed Lores to replace Alex Chriss, who is stepping down after two and a half years.
The Mission: Lores is being tasked with reversing a period of "sluggish execution."
The Market Reaction: PayPal shares dropped 14% in premarket trading following the news, largely due to a simultaneous "lackluster" profit forecast for 2026 and a miss on Q4 earnings.
The Exit from HP
Simultaneously, HP Inc. announced that Lores has stepped down from his role and the board, effective immediately.
Interim Leadership: HP board member Bruce Broussard (formerly CEO of Humana) has been named interim CEO while a global search for a permanent successor begins.
Financial Outlook: Despite the sudden exit, HP reaffirmed its fiscal 2026 outlook, projecting an adjusted profit of $2.90 to $3.20 per share.
On February 3, 2026, the tech world was blindsided by the news that Enrique Lores is resigning as CEO of HP Inc. to take over as CEO of PayPal. This isn't just a change in leadership; it’s a massive bet that the "AI-First" strategy Lores used to modernize HP’s hardware business can save PayPal’s struggling checkout empire.
Here is an analysis of how Lores is expected to apply his "HP Playbook" to PayPal's unique challenges.
The Lores Strategy: "Agentic Commerce" and AI Transformation
1. Fixing the "Branded Checkout" Crisis
PayPal’s biggest headache in 2026 is its "branded checkout" (the classic PayPal button). It remains the company's highest-margin product, but it has lost significant ground to Apple Pay and Google Pay, which offer faster, native experiences on mobile.
The HP Lesson: At HP, Lores moved the company away from selling "just boxes" (hardware) to selling subscriptions and services (like Instant Ink).
The PayPal Application: Expect Lores to transition the PayPal button from a passive payment tool to an AI-driven shopping assistant. Instead of you clicking "Pay," an AI agent—using your historical data—will negotiate the best price, apply coupons automatically, and handle the checkout in the background. This is what the industry is calling Agentic Commerce.
2. Deploying "Agentic AI" for Operational Efficiency
One of Lores’ most controversial moves at HP was a 2025 initiative to cut nearly 10% of the workforce (6,000 jobs) by 2028, explicitly replacing those roles with Agentic AI.
The Goal: Lores believes AI shouldn't just help humans work faster; it should redesign the process entirely.
PayPal’s Need: PayPal has been criticized for "sluggish execution." Lores is expected to aggressively implement AI in customer support, fraud detection, and software development. By automating these high-cost areas, he intends to boost the transaction margins that have been shrinking due to competition from Stripe and Adyen.
3. Leveraging the "Two-Sided Network"
Unlike its competitors, PayPal has direct relationships with 400 million consumers and 35 million merchants.
Lores' Vision: At HP, Lores focused on "personalized experiences" over one-size-fits-all hardware. At PayPal, he will likely use AI to mine this massive pool of data to offer hyper-personalized lending (Buy Now, Pay Later) and targeted advertising for merchants, turning PayPal into a data company that happens to process payments.
The market's reaction to Lores’ appointment was a 14% drop in PayPal's stock, primarily due to a poor profit forecast for the upcoming year.
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