Goldman Executive Says New Hires Already Manage AI, Leaving Middle Managers’ Future Unclear

New Goldman Sachs employees are starting work with AI agents to manage, rather than waiting years to gain management responsibility, executive Kevin Sneader said. Speaking at the Milken Institute Asia Summit in Singapore on October 8, he described a shift that leaves an older layer of the banking hierarchy facing an uncertain future: middle managers.

Sneader, who leads Goldman’s Asia Pacific business outside Japan, said young employees must make the most of the “virtual army” now available to them. His comments appeared in Bloomberg reporting published by NDTV. The discussion concerned how finance jobs would be reshaped, rather than an announced staffing policy or quantified reduction in jobs.

Management moves to the front line

The change starts with the work juniors used to perform. TechRadar’s coverage describes AI agents taking on routine administrative tasks that previously occupied new workers. Instead of doing all that work themselves and later supervising people, new hires begin by overseeing the systems carrying it out.

That puts pressure on a different group from the graduates usually associated with entry-level automation. Sneader called redeploying middle managers a “generational challenge for many, many segments.” He did not describe their disappearance as settled; he explicitly said their future remains unknown as management responsibilities move closer to the front line.

That management task no longer sits with the middle manager; it sits with the front line.

Kevin Sneader, Goldman Sachs executive, at the Milken Institute Asia Summit

A higher starting rung, but fewer openings

Other speakers at the same panel questioned whether the traditional career ladder would survive. Sandra Peterson, an operating partner at investment firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, described professional-service firms as pyramids: employees joined at the bottom and advanced through successive levels if they stayed.

With AI doing more routine work, Peterson said it was unclear whether firms would need as many entry-level positions. Chia Der Jiun, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore, was more direct about banking: banks will need fewer fresh graduates for analysis and preparatory work, he said.

His expectation complicates the idea that immediate AI-management responsibility necessarily protects graduate employment. The panel described both a new kind of junior role and less demand for some of the tasks that supported hiring at that level. Responsibility can move downward even as the number of openings comes under pressure.

Preparing people to supervise systems

Chia said operations staff will need to become managers and supervisors of AI agents. Singapore is responding by training bank employees in AI skills and working with universities to prepare graduates for these changes. That preparation covers existing workers as well as people who have yet to enter banking.