Goldman Sachs Warns: AI Could Make Bankers Forget How to Think

Could artificial intelligence make bankers worse at their jobs? A senior leader at Goldman Sachs (one of the world's biggest and most respected investment banks) says that's a real risk.

Chris Churchman, a partner leading Goldman's AI projects, warned that as AI takes over more work on Wall Street (the financial district in New York, often used as a nickname for the U.S. finance industry), young bankers may lose the ability to think for themselves.

The main concern: 'cognitive atrophy'

Churchman compared it to how people forgot how to read maps or memorize phone numbers once smartphones did it for them. If AI handles all the hard analysis, bankers might stop learning how to reason through problems on their own.

• "There's a huge danger... we outsource our reasoning to these models," Churchman said.
• He stressed that understanding how to structure an argument and solve problems is still essential.

Wall Street traditionally trains junior staff through hands-on experience — like handling client pricing requests while a senior expert supervises. Churchman warns that if AI does all this work:

• Firms may hire fewer junior bankers in the first place.
• The next generation may never gain the deep, hard-to-teach knowledge (called "tacit knowledge") that top professionals have.
• Employees could become passive operators instead of skilled decision-makers.

Churchman also revealed a big technical challenge: making AI answers 100% factual. In high finance, mistakes are costly, so there's little room for error. Strikingly, when Goldman's own AI system was pushed hard, it admitted: *"I'm better at sounding thorough than being thorough."*

The bottom line

Even Goldman Sachs — a leader in adopting AI — admits it hasn't fully figured out how to balance the benefits of AI with keeping human skills sharp. The takeaway: AI can boost profits today, but firms risk weakening the talent they'll need tomorrow.

This is an AI-generated summary. Read the original article at: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/24/goldman-sachs-ai-partner-danger-skills.html