I’m a senior technologist at a US bank in London. We’ve implemented a hiring freeze until 2026 and we are not alone. Every bank is combing through its operations and looking at how it can implement AI instead. Efficiencies are being pushed more and more forcefully.

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AI is capable of doing all kinds of jobs in banking. People talk about junior banking jobs and other jobs in the front office, along with technology jobs, but this is just scraping the surface. Banks are full of people doing process jobs; they are all disappearing.

Employees are resistant to change but why shouldn’t AI do something like project management, where massive teams in large banks are just coordinating across teams and summarizing documentation they don’t even understand? Similarly, why shouldn’t AI do the job of assistants who just read emails and update calendars?

Investing in AI costs. So does identifying opportunities for its integration. There is no money for human hires in late 2025.

Technologists’ jobs are not safe. Do not underestimate AI’s ability to replace coders. AI is fully capable of doing menial coding jobs, bug finding, and entry-level maintenance. Don’t forget that a large proportion of the workforce in banks is just engaged in quality control and run the mill work. Both things can be supplanted or reduced by AI.

It’s a new world.

 Laurent Maitre is the pseudonym of a senior technologist at a major bank

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