Wall Street Interns Are Safe From AI. Here’s Why.

Summer is here. And for a select cohort of college students, that means swapping lecture halls for trading floors and seminar rooms for Wall Street office suites. In the next few weeks, thousands will begin internships at Goldman Sachs Group Inc, JPMorgan Chase & Co and other major financial institutions. What awaits them could define their careers.

Getting there, however, has become harder than getting into the top universities where many of them study. Goldman Sachs begins its process more than a year out, interviewing candidates as early as the end of their sophomore year. The bank’s 2024 intern class saw over 315,000 applications for 2,700 spots – an acceptance rate of 0.9%. JPMorgan revealed at its investor day last year that it had received 493,000 applications for about 4,000 positions. Mary Erdoes, head of the asset and wealth management division, called the volume “mind-blowing,” noting it left the firm “ripe with the ability to pick talent” from an enormous pool. Both banks now have acceptance rates lower than Harvard University’s 3.6%.