In a letter to shareholders final 12 months, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon delivered an uncomfortable reality: AI “could scale back sure job classes or roles,” predicting labor ramifications just like the printing press, steam engine, electrical energy, and web. The tech turned the first suspect as JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, and Morgan Stanely issued a number of rounds of layoffs in 2025. However consultants inform Fortune that an AI-fueled finance job takeover is essentially “smoke and mirrors.” Not less than, for now.
Individuals have rightfully raised eyebrows as banks trim their workforces and funnel billions into AI capabilities. Companies have already deployed the software program of their operations, utilizing monikers for AI instruments like “Socrates,” performing hours value of junior-level analyst duties in simply seconds. Concurrently, a report from Citigroup has discovered that 54% of economic jobs “have a excessive potential for automation”—greater than some other sector. However consultants agree that AI-related layoffs have been insignificant, thus far. This 12 months’s circulation of banking headcount reductions are a results of pandemic-era overhiring and financial uncertainty.
“If there’s a big firm which may say, ‘Nicely, we’re not planning to rent as a lot due to AI,’ or possibly ‘We’re letting folks go due to AI,’ I feel there’s a bit little bit of smoke and mirrors there,” Robert Seamans, director of New York College Stern’s Middle for the Way forward for Administration, tells Fortune.
“AI is commonly a scapegoat for issues, as a result of it’s simpler responsible AI than it’s responsible softening client demand, or uncertainty due to tariffs, or possibly poor HR technique the previous few years when it comes to over hiring popping out of COVID,” he continues, including that “there’s so much much less political danger than blaming the President’s tariffs.”
Whereas AI isn’t able to changing bankers and consultants simply but, there may very well be hassle on the horizon for entrepreneurs and accountants, consultants inform Fortune. And elite enterprise levels are nonetheless value their whereas; the overwhelming majority of prime MBA college students are nonetheless locking in job presents quickly after commencement. However prospects are dwindling, and banking headcounts might stagnate for years as AI drives a large productiveness growth.
AI is stifling hiring within the banking {industry}—and it might final for years
Regardless of Wall Avenue making headlines for its relentless string of layoffs this 12 months, headcounts throughout banking and finance have really been comparatively regular.
“I feel the overall [headcount] development within the banking {industry} over the past decade is steady to barely declining. I don’t see that altering anytime quickly,” Pim Hilbers, a managing director working with banking and expertise at BCG, tells Fortune. “That doesn’t imply that everyone simply stays of their job for all times. I feel we see much more mobility than we noticed previously.”
To this point, America’s largest monetary establishments haven’t been making deep workforce cuts. Financial institution of America employed simply 4 fewer staff on the finish of the third quarter this 12 months, in comparison with 2024. In that very same time interval, JPMorgan noticed its headcount climb by 2,000 workers, and greater than a 3rd of the brand new staffers have been introduced onto company operations. Even Goldman Sachs, which applied a number of rounds of layoffs this 12 months, employed 48,300 this September—round 1,800 staffers larger than the 12 months earlier than.
Banks aren’t able to shed staffers simply but; consultants inform Fortune they’re pulling again on headcount development for so long as potential, leaning on AI effectivity positive factors till they’re compelled so as to add extra people to payroll. They predict this sluggish interval of hiring might final for years.
“Most of the banks I talked to will say, ‘Look, I wish to get the productiveness in order that I don’t have to rent the subsequent 100 folks to placed on one other billion {dollars} of loans.’ That’s most likely [what] nearly all of pondering is: I simply gained’t have to rent for twenty-four months, as a result of I can get the productiveness,” Mike Abbott, {industry} group lead for Accenture’s banking and capital markets, tells Fortune.
“As attrition flows by, you don’t have to rent as many, however then ultimately you hit some extent the place you’re going to have to rent once more.”
Prime MBA college students are nonetheless succeeding—however job presents are declining
MBA graduates are already feeling the hiring tremors in lieu of sturdy employment charges. Round 92% of the category of 2025 college students from Columbia Enterprise Faculty obtained job presents, as did 86% of this 12 months’s NYU Stern MBA graduates. Final 12 months, 93% of Wharton college students reported receiving work alternatives, and at Duke, 85% nailed down an supply letter.
Nonetheless, professors at these prime enterprise colleges warning that the statistics aren’t a mirrored image of all MBA packages. Columbia and NYU Stern, for instance, are nestled within the epicenter of U.S. finance: New York Metropolis. Moreover, these elite universities have extra sources to ability college students and increase their market worth. Columbia Enterprise Faculty affiliate professor of enterprise Daniel Keum tells Fortune that Python is an “nearly required” class for all MBA pupils on the college.
And whereas MBA job supply charges stay excessive, take a peek beneath the hood, and the prospects aren’t as plentiful. Job placement outcomes at each single one in every of America’s “magnificent seven” elite MBA packages—together with Northwestern, MIT, Stanford, and Harvard—have declined since 2021, in line with a Bloomberg evaluation. In 2021, solely 4% of Harvard’s MBA college students obtained no job supply inside three months of commencement; by 2024, that determine swelled to fifteen%. MIT noticed an analogous change, with its share of offer-less graduates climbing from 4.1% to 14.9% in a matter of three years.
The finance roles which can be nonetheless protected—and those most in danger
As AI has advanced to tackle the grunt work—getting ready slideshow displays, synthesizing shopper information, and balancing checkbooks—it’s been feared that every one junior-level analysts would quickly get the boot. However not all jobs within the monetary {industry} depend on the identical core expertise, and consultants inform Fortune there are just a few endangered roles within the period of AI disruption.
Surprisingly, the entry-level monetary staff paying their dues and tediously crafting bespoke powerpoint displays gained’t be the primary ones out the door. Keum tells Fortune that consulting and banking jobs “resist automation fairly robustly.” He explains that their job duties have little margin for error, as shoppers is not going to tolerate even the smallest mistake. Plus, each enterprise deal is completely different; no two acquisitions are precisely alike, making it troublesome to automate human crucial pondering wanted for the job.
“Banking consulting [is] really not doing too unhealthy. Take into consideration compliance points the place that 1% mistake just isn’t tolerated. It can’t be accepted,” Keum says. “That’s why numerous analyst jobs at McKinsey and Bain are automated, nevertheless it’s nonetheless extraordinarily human intensive.”
Concurrently, Abbott predicts an industry-wide surge in tech hiring. Round 76% of banks count on to extend their tech headcount due to agentic AI, in line with Accenture information shared with Fortune. However human staffers in just a few susceptible roles may see the hostile impact of AI’s positive factors. It’s estimated that 73% of working time spent by U.S. banking workers has excessive potential to be impacted by generative AI, in line with a 2024 Accenture report, enhancing the productiveness of early AI-adopters by 22% to 30% over the subsequent three years. Keum sees accounting and advertising and marketing roles being hit the toughest.
“Accountants will not be doing effectively,” Keum instructed Fortune. “For accounting, it was, ‘Let’s ensure that your numbers are appropriate primarily based on bodily receipts inputted. Now, AI can try this very effectively…They’re hiring so much much less. So solely the extraordinarily senior folks survive.”
