AI Looms Over Sales Trading: “The Parts That Shouldn’t Still Exist” Will Be Automated
A sales trader speaking to eFinancialCareers paints a stark picture of the future for many roles on the trading floor: increasingly needless. According to the trader, the daily tasks of moast sales and trading positions – “admin, report compiling, data pulls, collation of news [and] writing summaries” - are now readily handled by artificial intelligence, and frequently enough with greater efficiency.
This trend isn’t new. The trader notes that “over the past decade, a big chunk of generalist equity sales roles have disappeared,” and AI is accelerating the process. However, the impact won’t be uniform. Specialists,those with deep knowlege of specific sectors,are expected to fare better. “Clients will always make time for someone who knows their coverage deeply, can challenge their thinking, and can spot dislocations or opportunities early,” he stated. He recommends focusing on nuanced areas like biotech or financials equities, citing the complex regulatory landscapes within those fields.
Despite the clear potential for automation, banks continue to employ individuals for these roles, a situation the trader attributes to fear and internal resistance. Banks are “genuinely scared of AI,” he claims, hesitant to utilize public AI models due to concerns about data leakage and compliance issues. While internal large Language Models (LLMs) are being developed, they are “limited, heavily constrained, and nowhere near what ChatGPT can do.”
Beyond technical limitations, a political element is at play. The “old guard” within banks are reportedly resisting AI adoption, as it would “expose inefficiencies, flatten hierarchies, and automate functions that have been protected for decades.”
However, the trader believes these are temporary obstacles.He predicts that AI “will kill the parts [of the trading floor] that shouldn’t still exist,” ultimately reshaping the landscape of sales and trading.
Readers can submit questions to the sales trader through an “Ask Me Anything” (AMA) session on The Bubble, eFinancialCareers’ anonymous forum, until this Thursday.The Bubble currently hosts a community of over 2,000 finance professionals.
