In a letter to shareholders final 12 months, JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon delivered an uncomfortable fact: AI “may reduce certain job categories or roles,” predicting labor ramifications much 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 basically “smoke and mirrors.” At the least, 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 high potential for automation”—greater than some other sector. However consultants agree that AI-related layoffs have been insignificant, to this point. This 12 months’s move of banking headcount reductions are a results of pandemic-era overhiring and financial uncertainty.
“If there’s a large company that might say, ‘Well, we’re not planning to hire as much because of AI,’ or maybe ‘We’re letting people go because of AI,’ I think there’s a little bit of smoke and mirrors there,” Robert Seamans, director of New York College Stern’s Heart for the Way forward for Administration, tells Fortune.
“AI is often a scapegoat for things, because it’s easier to blame AI than it is to blame softening consumer demand, or uncertainty because of tariffs, or maybe poor HR strategy the past few years in terms of over hiring coming out of COVID,” he continues, including that “there’s a lot less political risk than blaming the President’s tariffs.”
Whereas AI isn’t able to changing bankers and consultants simply but, there might 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 provides quickly after commencement. However prospects are dwindling, and banking headcounts might stagnate for years as AI drives a large productiveness increase.
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 truly been comparatively regular.
“I think the general [headcount] trend in the banking industry over the last decade is stable to slightly declining. I don’t see that changing anytime soon,” Pim Hilbers, a managing director working with banking and expertise at BCG, tells Fortune. “That doesn’t mean that everybody just stays in their job for life. I think we see a lot more mobility than we saw in the past.”
Thus far, America’s largest monetary establishments haven’t been making deep workforce cuts. Financial institution of America employed simply 4 fewer employees 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 increased than the 12 months earlier than.
Banks aren’t able to shed staffers simply but; consultants inform Fortune they’re pulling again on headcount progress for so long as attainable, leaning on AI effectivity good points till they’re compelled so as to add extra people to payroll. They predict this sluggish interval of hiring might final for years.
“Many of the banks I talked to will say, ‘Look, I want to get the productivity so that I don’t have to hire the next 100 people to put on another billion dollars of loans.’ That’s probably [what] the majority of thinking is: I just won’t have to hire for 24 months, because I can get the productivity,” Mike Abbott, {industry} group lead for Accenture’s banking and capital markets, tells Fortune.
“As attrition flows through, you don’t have to hire as many, but then eventually you hit a point where you’re going to have to hire again.”
High MBA college students are nonetheless succeeding—however job provides 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 College acquired job provides, 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 a suggestion letter.
Nevertheless, 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 assets to ability college students and enhance their market worth. Columbia Enterprise College affiliate professor of enterprise Daniel Keum tells Fortune that Python is an “almost required” class for all MBA pupils on the college.
And whereas MBA job supply charges stay excessive, take a peek below the hood, and the prospects aren’t as plentiful. Job placement outcomes at each single one among America’s “magnificent seven” elite MBA packages—together with Northwestern, MIT, Stanford, and Harvard—have declined since 2021, in keeping with a Bloomberg evaluation. In 2021, solely 4% of Harvard’s MBA college students acquired no job supply inside three months of commencement; by 2024, that determine swelled to fifteen%. MIT noticed the same 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 are nonetheless secure—and those most in danger
As AI has advanced to tackle the grunt work—making ready slideshow displays, synthesizing consumer information, and balancing checkbooks—it’s been feared that each 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 a number of endangered roles within the period of AI disruption.
Surprisingly, the entry-level monetary employees 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 quite robustly.” He explains that their job duties have little margin for error, as shoppers won’t tolerate even the smallest mistake. Plus, each enterprise deal is totally different; no two acquisitions are precisely alike, making it troublesome to automate human essential considering wanted for the job.
“Banking consulting [is] actually not doing too bad. Think about compliance issues where that 1% mistake is not tolerated. It cannot be accepted,” Keum says. “That’s why a lot of analyst jobs at McKinsey and Bain are automated, but it’s still extremely 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 keeping with Accenture information shared with Fortune. However human staffers in a number of weak roles may see the adversarial impact of AI’s good points. It’s estimated that 73% of working time spent by U.S. banking workers has excessive potential to be impacted by generative AI, in keeping 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 roles being hit the toughest.
“Accountants are not doing well,” Keum informed Fortune. “For accounting, it was, ‘Let’s make sure that your numbers are correct based on physical receipts inputted. Now, AI can do that very well…They’re hiring a lot less. So only the extremely senior people survive.”
