CaliToday (23/10/2025): The grueling 80-hour workweek, a notorious rite of passage for Wall Street’s junior bankers built on a mountain of spreadsheets and pitch decks, is in the crosshairs of Sam Altman’s OpenAI.
According to leaked documents reported by Bloomberg on Tuesday, the AI giant has quietly launched "Project Mercury." The initiative has enlisted a strike team of over 100 former investment bankers from elite firms like JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, and Goldman Sachs.
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| Sam Altman's OpenAI is enlisting ex-investment bankers to train AI models, which may transform entry-level finance work. (Kyle Grillot/Bloomberg via Getty Images) |
Their mission: to teach OpenAI’s models the dark arts of high finance, specifically how to build the complex financial models and perform the entry-level "grunt work" that consumes countless hours.
But while this move seems to signal an extinction-level event for entry-level finance roles, experts tell Fortune the reality is far more nuanced. This doesn’t necessarily signal an impending workforce reduction, but rather a profound transformation of what it means to be a "junior analyst."
The "First Wave of Automation"
Economists following the AI-adoption wave argue that this is a predictable, if rapid, evolution.
“I’m not convinced that we get rid of entry-level workers anytime soon, but I could imagine a world where the skill set we need those entry-level workers to have is different,” Shawn DuBravac, an economist and CEO of research firm Avrio Institute, told Fortune.
DuBravac believes this "first wave of automation" will crash over the most structured, repeatable tasks that junior analysts currently spend their 80-hour weeks agonizing over. This includes cleaning and formatting spreadsheets, building standardized financial models for mergers and leveraged buyouts, and assembling pitch decks.
“These are all areas where the data is plentiful, the templates are standardized, and the process can be learned from repetition,” DuBravac explained. His prediction is startlingly fast: “Within the next year, I’d expect firms will move quickly to try to automate 60% to 70% of the time analysts currently spend on these lower-level tasks.”
But rather than being fired, these analysts will be freed. As AI becomes embedded in their workflow, senior analysts will simply find more "sophisticated" work for them—tasks like building financial models with far greater complexity or performing deep quantitative analysis, skills they normally wouldn't learn until much later in their careers.
“We often overestimate how impactful some of the technology will be when it comes to eradicating work as we know it,” DuBravac added. “Just like Excel spreadsheets did back in the day, [AI] will streamline some work.”
Superpowers or Pink Slips?
This "transformation" thesis is echoed by other industry leaders. Ram Srinivasan, managing director of consulting at JLL, called OpenAI's initiative a "natural evolution in investment banking."
“AI will give every analyst superpowers and allow banks to compound human insight,” Srinivasan told Fortune. In this vision, the junior analyst’s role shifts dramatically: they become "reviewers and customizers rather than builders from scratch," enabling each person to support more deals simultaneously.
However, not everyone shares this rosy outlook.
Data suggests that for many, "transformation" may still look a lot like "reduction." A World Economic Forum report from January revealed that 40% of employers expect to reduce their workforce in areas where AI can automate tasks.
A March report from McKinsey found that while 38% of organizations using AI see little effect on workforce size, "respondents at larger organizations... are more likely... to say their organizations have reduced the number of employees as a result of time saved."
The data for the strategy and corporate finance sector is deeply divided:
29% predict no change in employee numbers.
Just under 33% expect headcount reductions.
30% actually predict an increase in headcount in the next three years.
DuBravac reconciles this, predicting that "headcounts [will stay] mostly flat, but at the same time, workloads will become lighter in some areas and heavier in others."
The New Arms Race: Hiring for AI Expertise
This seismic shift is forcing a focus on the value of education and the very definition of a "qualified" candidate.
An Indeed Hiring Lab survey from last year found that nearly half (49%) of U.S. Gen Z job hunters believe AI has directly reduced the value of their higher education in the job market.
They may be right, but only if that education is purely traditional. DuBravac argues this will simply force firms to hunt for candidates with entirely new skills. The most valuable new hire will be the one who already has experience working with AI models.
Why? Because banks will need this talent to build their own proprietary AI products.
“There could be a stronger demand for people who have a deeper expertise in AI,” DuBravac said. “You bring some of that in-house, because at the end of the day, finance is all about not just getting the right answer, but getting it more quickly than your competitors, or getting a more differentiated answer than your competitors.”
Ultimately, Project Mercury signals that the grueling, 80-hour week of Excel grinding is on its deathbed. But the junior analyst role isn't vanishing—it's evolving into a high-stakes position where finance acumen and AI expertise merge, launching a new arms race for talent on Wall Street.