By Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Marc Cooper
Successful investment banking rests on judgment, execution, and client relationships. AI will not change these intrinsic human capabilities, yet it represents far more than another productivity tool. It is a sea change in how banking work gets done – and, just as importantly, in how the next generation of bankers learns the profession.
Research, analysis, pitch books, and transaction preparation are being transformed by technology. AI is having a profound effect on the speed and volume of work that bankers produce. That said, AI will not turn a young professional into a great banker overnight.
As AI takes on more of the work through which generations of bankers learned the fundamentals, it could make early-career training more challenging, not less. That remains the central talent management question for investment banks: how firms should train, recruit, and develop young bankers in an increasingly technology-enabled industry.
For decades, the tried-and-true analyst program worked because both sides understood the bargain. Young people came into banking for experience, exposure, training, and credentials. Banks got smart, energetic people who could do the analytical work needed to support transactions yet weren’t necessarily committed to staying for the long term.
The system had real value. It taught technical fluency, discipline, pattern recognition, and the rhythm of how deals get done. The people who showed promise naturally got pulled into more work. More assignments created more repetitions. More reps, combined with curiosity and judgment, created development. That produced excellent bankers. However, it was not always the most deliberate way to build talent.
AI adds a new dimension to that equation. As technology becomes more capable of taking on the work, banks will have to think about how young professionals learn the craft beneath the output. Young bankers still need to understand valuation. They still need to know how companies make money, how industries shift, how buyers think, how boards assess risk, and why one deal creates value while another does not.
Early career bankers may no longer develop that understanding simply by building every model, market analysis, and presentation from the ground up. To become credible advisers, they will need to know how that work is done, where its assumptions can fail, and when an apparently convincing answer is wrong.
That is the opportunity. Firms that invest in structured teaching, simulation, case-based work, and direct access to senior bankers can move from learning-by-exposure to intentional apprenticeship. Deliberate development gives young professionals something the transaction flow alone rarely provides: a clear understanding of not just what to do, but why it matters.
AI’s new world order requires firms to redesign how professional capability is created – a world in which doing the underlying work and learning from it are no longer the same thing. The goal is not to make banking less rigorous. It is to make the rigor more purposeful.
The effects of AI will also impact recruiting. To build best-in-class bankers, firms will focus on recruits who demonstrate maturity, critical thinking, interpersonal skills, commercial instinct, and commitment to the profession. Recruits must demonstrate the potential to become genuinely trusted advisers to clients.
Going forward, the strongest firms will be those that identify partner-caliber potential earlier and invest more intentionally and intensively in preparing the next generation of bankers.
For CEOs and senior leaders, AI is now a talent-management opportunity as much as it is a technology one. The profession will remain a relationship business built on trust. The test is whether firms can build judgment, trust, and future partners in this new era of AI.