UBS Group, Switzerland’s largest bank, has formally incorporated AI application skills into its hiring criteria for junior investment banking roles. Applicants seeking to join the Global Banking & Markets division in 2027—both graduates and interns—must demonstrate during interviews that they can use AI to improve work output and efficiency. This requirement now sits alongside the traditional UK upper second-class honors degree threshold, making UBS one of the first major financial institutions to explicitly require AI literacy for junior bankers.

According to market sources, UBS will add AI proficiency questions to the interview process for graduates and interns, requiring candidates to explain how they have previously used relevant tools. People familiar with the matter revealed that the AI capability requirement also applies to other newly posted positions at the bank, not limited to campus recruitment programs within the investment banking division.

UBS responded by stating that the company continuously reviews its hiring standards to match the skills actually required, emphasizing that “as AI profoundly reshapes the financial services industry, AI capabilities and related experience have become important factors in career development, and therefore constitute relevant hiring criteria.” The bank also noted that AI literacy is a complement to—not a replacement for—academic, analytical, and interpersonal abilities, which remain central to its talent selection.

European Banking Industry Follows Suit

UBS is not alone. According to company public filings, Banco Santander, Spain’s largest bank, is also explicitly recruiting “advanced AI users” in select graduate recruitment programs within its corporate and investment banking division. This trend reflects how AI tools are permeating from technology and data roles into traditional banking positions across the board.

The banking industry is increasingly deploying AI tools for routine work historically performed by junior employees, ranging from financial analysis and research report writing to client presentation preparation. UBS itself is experimenting with the technology in novel ways, including building digital avatars for analysts that can deliver video presentations to clients—a move the bank says will allow employees to focus on more productive work.

Layoff Concerns Intensify

As hiring standards evolve, market concerns about large-scale layoffs in the banking sector are also mounting. Research published by Morgan Stanley late last year showed that as banks accelerate AI deployment and continue to shrink physical branch networks, more than 200,000 jobs in the European banking industry face risk by 2030.

The analysis covered 35 banks with a combined workforce of approximately 2.12 million employees, representing a reduction of roughly 10%, with the impact concentrated in “central functions” such as middle and back-office operations, risk management, and compliance. In May this year, Morgan Stanley analysts went further, judging that the rapid proliferation of AI could push layoffs in European banking to as much as one-fifth of the workforce in the nearer term; multiple banks have stated that AI and digitalization could deliver efficiency gains of up to approximately 30%.

InstitutionAI-Related Hiring InitiativesUBS GroupJunior investment banking roles starting 2027 must demonstrate AI application skills; AI proficiency assessment added to interviewsBanco SantanderSelect graduate programs in corporate and investment banking explicitly recruit “advanced AI users”JPMorganSeeks to balance using AI to accelerate basic work with training junior employees in core skills

Note: Table compiled from market sources and company public filings.

Cautious Stance from Senior Leadership

Despite rising demand for AI skills, some bank executives have expressed caution about over-reliance on technology. Conor Hillery, co-CEO of JPMorgan for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, said last year that JPMorgan is trying to strike a balance between using AI to accelerate foundational work and training junior employees in traditional core skills.

He stressed that banks need to be “very careful” to avoid employees losing their understanding of fundamental and core competencies. Hillery added that JPMorgan is working to find equilibrium between leveraging AI to accelerate basic tasks and training junior employees in traditional core banking skills.

UBS’s position aligns with this stance. The bank emphasized that AI literacy is a “complement rather than a replacement” for existing capability requirements, with academic ability, analytical skills, and interpersonal communication remaining core dimensions of its hiring criteria. However, with AI thresholds now formally written into recruitment requirements, the competitive calculus has quietly shifted for graduates who have not yet systematically engaged with this technology.

This shift is unfolding against the backdrop of deep structural transformation driven by AI across the banking industry. From UBS’s digital avatar experiments to Santander’s explicit recruitment of advanced AI users, to Morgan Stanley’s projections of layoff scale in European banking, AI is simultaneously rewriting the talent standards and workforce allocation logic of the financial sector. For newcomers about to enter the investment banking profession, proficiency with AI tools has evolved from a differentiator into a baseline requirement.