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 under a minute. 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.

👉 Read the full article

~Ryan Erickson, Founding Executive