Don’t bank on your banking job outlasting AI 

OVER the past few months, I’ve had occasion to speak at a number of conferences concerned with the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on financial jobs. My audience’s interests vary. Some are students and young professionals concerned about job prospects. Some are bank executives and investors interested in employee cost projections. Some are customers and regulators who want to know how AI will change client experiences and protections. And in some cases, they are interested in learning how to exploit opportunities to sell to established financial institutions or to compete with them.

I have one answer for all of them. AI advances of the last five years or so will completely eliminate some large categories of financial jobs that have been around for many decades. However, like financial innovations of the past, it will also create jobs in two different ways. The improved efficiency and power of AI methods will create entirely new opportunities, and the improved performance of financial systems will stimulate growth in the sector.

But even if the net result is more and better jobs for humans, there will be massive disruption. The people who get the new jobs will not necessarily, or even usually, be the people laid off from the old ones; and the companies exploiting the growth in the financial sector may be recent startups rather than established institutions.