UBS is demanding that prospective junior investment bankers demonstrate AI proficiency as a hiring requirement for 2027 graduate and intern roles in its global banking and markets divisions. Candidates must show how they can use AI to "improve outcomes and efficiency," alongside traditional criteria like a 2.1 undergraduate degree. This makes UBS one of the first major European lenders to explicitly require AI literacy for junior banking roles.

AI "fluency" questions will be added to recruitment interviews, testing candidates on practical use of the technology. Spain's Santander has similarly sought "advanced AI users" for some graduate programmes in its corporate and investment bank. The shift comes as Morgan Stanley analysts forecast over 200,000 European banking jobs at risk in five years due to AI automation and branch closures.

Executives warn juniors must still learn fundamentals; JPMorgan Chase's Conor Hillery cautioned at the FT's global banking summit that banks must be "very careful" staff don't "lose an understanding of the basics." UBS has experimented with analyst avatars for client presentations, freeing staff for higher-value work. The bank stated AI literacy "complements, rather than replaces" core academic, analytical, and interpersonal skills.