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By Max Adams
Head Coach
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“If my analysts are twice as productive with AI, I’ll hire twice as many analysts.”
That’s the mindset Wall Street needs as artificial intelligence transforms finance. The alternative? Using AI primarily to eliminate junior jobs, and although that may boost profits today, it dismantles the pipeline of talent leading the industry tomorrow.
An investment bank CEO I interviewed recently made this point clearly, pointing out that Claude and industry-specific tools such as Rogo can now do most of the tasks of an analyst, but faster, more accurately, and without complaining about late nights and meal budgets.
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His conclusion was predictable: banks need fewer analysts.
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And the economics are seductive. Investment banking analysts at major Wall Street firms can earn six-figure base salaries, with bonuses potentially increasing total compensation substantially, often scaling higher depending on the firm and position.
If technology can produce the same output with fewer people, cutting headcount is an obvious way to expand margins. And when competitors are doing the same thing, refusing to follow can look like bad management or technophobia.
But Wall Street isn’t a factory. It’s an apprenticeship.
An analyst hired today isn’t merely being paid to build models, format presentations, and summarize documents. That analyst is being trained to become tomorrow’s senior banker: someone who can win clients, understand complex businesses, and ultimately lead multibillion-dollar negotiations.
AI can automate tasks. It cannot automatically manufacture 10 years of judgment, relationships, and credibility.
However, the analyst role has changed, and if the analyst role no longer exists in its historic form, today’s entry-level hires will have to work upward, taking on senior-level skills earlier.
High Stakes
Evidence suggests this is already happening.
PwC’s 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer analyzed 2.4 million U.S. entry-level jobs and found that roles most exposed to AI were seven times more likely than the least AI-exposed roles to require traditionally senior-level skills, including leadership, creativity and interpersonal interaction.
Job openings for these roles grew 35 percent between 2019 and 2025, while other entry-level roles declined 10 percent.
That should change how executives think about AI.
Executives shouldn’t be in a race to fire analysts and improve margins in a spate of AI-mongering. Instead, they should consider how much more capable each analyst can become, and how much more business the bank can pursue as a result.
The stakes extend far beyond Wall Street. Investment banks allocate capital throughout the economy. They advise companies on acquisitions, financing, and strategy.
If firms hollow out their junior ranks today, companies across the economy will be hobbled by the lack of institutional knowledge and judgment that creates easy access to capital.
Financially Rational, but Myopic
But incentives don’t support this long-term thinking. The CEO making the decision to replace analysts with AI in 2027 may not be around in 2037 when the bill arrives.
Cutting headcount can improve this year’s numbers. Developing exceptional leaders takes years. The first benefit belongs to the current management team; the cost of underinvestment belongs to its successor.
This short-term thinking is exacerbated by AI uncertainty. In finance, greater risk and uncertainty increase the discount applied to future returns. And uncertainty surrounding AI is enormous.
So executives shorten their horizons.
That may be financially rational. It’s still myopic.
But there’s a better path. On one half of the talent marketplace, students should become AI-native, using the technology aggressively while building the senior-level capabilities that compound over a career: judgment, communication, commercial instincts, creativity, and relationships.
CEOs need to make an equally important shift. Stop treating every productivity gain as a reason to reduce headcount. If an analyst can produce twice as much, use that capacity to pursue more clients, more transactions, and more growth.
The bank CEO who told me, “If my analysts are twice as productive with AI, I’ll hire twice as many analysts,” understood the opportunity.
Max Adams is the head coach at Wall Street Mastermind, where he helps candidates compete for investment banking, private equity, and other high-finance careers. All views are his own.
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