The Death of the Bullpen: How AI Is Erasing the Entry-Level Analyst

In the traditional investment banking model, junior analysts were hired to spend 80 to 100 hours a week doing the dirty work. That meant manual data entry, formatting pitch books, and countless other simple yet grueling, time-consuming tasks. Over time, as a junior analyst proved themselves in these lower-level roles, they would advance in the ranks, eventually participating more closely in major deals and moving away from the tedious, repetitive labor. This model has held up for decades, but the rapid development of AI software could now be bringing it to an end.

With the advancement of AI, some banks are reportedly weighing immense cuts to the number of junior analysts they hire1, shifting those foundational tasks over to AI instead. Rather than building everything from scratch, a small handful of juniors can simply review the AI's output, spending a fraction of the time fixing mistakes rather than doing the manual labor themselves.

This shift, however, creates a massive problem for the next generation. While the original formula involved boring and difficult tasks, it served as a necessary training camp. It ensured that young associates mastered the foundations of research and financial modeling before they reached the higher levels of the firm. If you remove the dirty work, you also remove the training and experience that came with it.

That leads to a scary reality for upcoming bankers: a shrinking job market where the entry-level bar is higher than ever. Banks are hiring far fewer people, and without those junior roles, there is no longer a clear path for anyone to actually learn the business. By cutting these spots to save money today, banks are essentially losing their future leaders. After all, can a banker truly lead a multi-billion-dollar deal if they never learned how to build the foundation from the ground up?