Why Wall Street is hiring less but paying more for the right talent

Goldman Sachs reports that AI can now handle 95% of IPO prospectus drafting in minutes. Moelis predicts the junior banker layer will shrink significantly. Across Wall Street, firms are slashing hiring plans, not due to headcount caps, but because AI enables more output with fewer people.

This shift goes beyond simple automation. It's fundamentally reshaping who adds value on Wall Street. Research, financial modeling, and pitch deck creation are increasingly handled by large language models and internal AI copilots. The firms pulling ahead aren't cutting corners—they're cutting clutter.

The winners:

• Senior staff with deep sector expertise who can provide strategic insight AI cannot replicate

• Client-facing professionals who bring irreplaceable trust and contextual understanding to relationships

• Operators skilled at guiding and augmenting AI workflows to maximize efficiency

Everyone else faces an adaptation challenge. As one strategist observed, "Business units aren't yelling for bodies anymore. They're yelling for technology." The message is clear: evolve your skill set or risk obsolescence in an AI-augmented financial services landscape.

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~Ryan Erickson, Founding Executive

TLDR: What you need to know about AI in Finance

• Goldman Sachs rolls out AI Assistant to 46,000 employees, supporting research, pitch decks, and code with GPT-4 and Gemini.

• Ramp raises $200M at $16B valuation to expand its AI finance automation platform used by 40,000+ businesses.

• Finom secures €115M for AI-enabled SMB banking, helping small businesses cut bookkeeping time by 90%.

• EU AI Act enforcement begins August 2025, requiring AI training and compliance or face steep penalties.

• Microsoft upgrades Copilot for Finance with Excel integration and natural language analysis tools.

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