Newsweek published my op-ed today, Wall Street’s AI strategy could destroy its leadership pipeline. It runs in the Leadership Insights section, and the full piece is free to read on Newsweek.
The short version: AI is making junior bankers far more productive, and every bank now has to decide what to do with that extra output. One option is to hire fewer analysts and keep the savings. The other is to keep hiring and put the added capacity to work winning more clients and more deals. I argue for the second.
Below is the reasoning behind the piece, plus what it means for you if you are recruiting for investment banking right now.
The Question Every Bank Is Asking
A bank CEO I interviewed recently laid out the case for cutting. Tools like Claude and Rogo, an AI platform built for finance, can now handle most of the tasks an analyst does, and they do it faster and with fewer errors. His conclusion was that banks need fewer analysts.
The math behind that view is easy to follow. Analysts at major firms earn six-figure base salaries before bonus, so a smaller analyst class is one of the quickest ways to widen margins. And once competitors start trimming their junior ranks, a bank that keeps hiring can look slow or sentimental to its own board.
That is the pressure. The op-ed is about why giving in to it is a mistake.
Why the Analyst Seat Is an Apprenticeship
Banks do pay analysts to build models, format pitch books and summarize documents. That was always the smaller part of the deal. The bigger part is training: the analyst class is where a bank grows the senior bankers who will win clients, understand complicated businesses and run large negotiations ten or fifteen years from now.
AI can automate tasks. It cannot hand anyone a decade of judgment, relationships and credibility. Those come from years of sitting in the room, watching how senior bankers handle clients and getting real responsibility early.
If a bank shrinks its analyst class today, it also shrinks the pool of future vice presidents and managing directors it can promote from. That gap shows up slowly, and by the time it is obvious it is very hard to fix.
What the Data Shows About Entry-Level Work
The analyst role is changing, and the piece says so directly. If the old version of the job goes away, entry-level hires will have to take on senior-level skills much earlier in their careers.
The evidence points that way already. PwC’s 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer analyzed 2.4 million U.S. entry-level jobs. The roles most exposed to AI were seven times more likely than the least exposed roles to call for skills that used to belong to senior people, such as leadership, creativity and working well with others.
Openings for those AI-exposed roles grew 35 percent from 2019 to 2025, while other entry-level roles fell 10 percent. AI is raising the bar for junior work, and the jobs that clear that bar are growing.
Why Cutting Analysts Is Tempting and Short-Sighted
The incentives push executives toward the cut. A CEO who replaces analysts with AI in 2027 may be long gone by 2037, when the shortage of trained leaders finally lands. Fewer analysts improve this year’s numbers. Developing strong leaders takes years. The current team keeps the benefit and its successors inherit the cost.
Uncertainty makes this worse. In finance, more uncertainty means a bigger discount on future returns, and nobody is certain where AI is heading. That makes the long-term payoff from training people look smaller on paper than it really is. Cutting can be financially rational and still be myopic.
The stakes reach well past Wall Street. Banks move capital through the economy and advise companies on acquisitions, financing and strategy. A hollowed-out junior bench today means less experienced judgment on the other side of the table for companies that need capital tomorrow.
What This Means for Students Recruiting Now
The piece closes with advice for both sides of the hiring market. For students, it comes down to two things.
- Become AI-native. Use these tools every day for research, first-draft models and checking your work. Comfort with them is quickly becoming part of the baseline for a junior hire.
- Build the skills that compound. Judgment, clear communication, commercial sense, creativity and relationships get more valuable every year you work, and AI does not replace them.
In practice, that means your technicals still matter. AI can produce a first-draft DCF, but you need to know enough to spot when the output is wrong, so keep drilling with our technical cheat sheet. It also means networking matters more. Every coffee chat is practice at the client skills the piece describes, and our guide on building relationships that lead to offers shows how to run them well.
Timing has not changed either. Recruiting for junior-summer investment banking internships starts in the fall of sophomore year, so the earlier you build these habits, the better. For a closer look at how AI is changing the analyst job day to day, read Will AI Replace Investment Banking Analysts?
What Bank Leaders Should Do Instead
For CEOs, the shift is just as important. Stop treating every productivity gain as a reason to cut headcount. If an analyst can now produce twice as much, use that capacity to cover more clients, run more transactions and grow the franchise.
The piece opens and closes with a different bank CEO who already sees it this way: “If my analysts are twice as productive with AI, I’ll hire twice as many analysts.”
Read the Full Op-Ed
The complete piece is on Newsweek: Wall Street’s AI strategy could destroy its leadership pipeline. If it resonates, share it with a classmate, a parent or a banker in your network.
Key Takeaways
- AI is making investment banking analysts far more productive, and banks have to choose between cutting junior headcount and using the extra capacity to grow.
- The analyst class is an apprenticeship that produces the next generation of senior bankers, so cutting it today weakens leadership a decade from now.
- PwC data cited in the piece shows AI-exposed entry-level roles growing and asking for senior-level skills much earlier.
- Students should become AI-native while building judgment, communication and relationships, and keep their technicals strong.
- Bank leaders should treat productivity gains as fuel for more clients and more deals.
Want Personalized Interview Coaching?
If you are serious about breaking into investment banking, the best thing you can do is work with someone who has been through the recruiting process and knows what top banks look for. At Wall Street Mastermind, we have coached over 2,500 students through recruiting at bulge bracket banks, elite boutiques, and middle market firms. Book a free strategy call to learn how we can help you prepare.
Related Articles
- Will AI Replace Investment Banking Analysts? What You Need to Know
- Investment Banking Networking: How to Build Relationships That Lead to Offers
- Is Investment Banking Worth It? An Honest Assessment
- Investment Banking Associate Compensation: What to Expect
Follow Wall Street Mastermind
Stay up to date with the latest investment banking recruiting tips, technical guides, and career advice:
- YouTube
- TikTok
- X (Twitter)
- Podcast: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | SoundCloud
