Even senior leaders within Goldman Sachs’ investment bank are having to rethink how they conduct client meetings.
Kim Posnett, the firm’s co-head of investment banking, said artificial intelligence has changed what these meetings look like for both the bank and its clients because each side can now access and interpret much more information. As a result, the CEOs, founders, and investors she speaks with expect stronger advice.
Posnett said this raises the standard for productive meetings, since everyone arrives better informed and more capable.
She also uses AI to process information more quickly while preparing for client conversations, freeing her to focus on higher-level thinking—a shift she says is common among senior bankers.
Junior bankers are likewise arriving at client meetings better prepared, which is strengthening the apprenticeship culture at the heart of the firm’s identity, Posnett said. The most junior analysts can now devote more time to the places where real learning happens: listening to complex discussions and observing how senior bankers guide clients through consequential decisions.
Striking the Right Balance With AI
Goldman Sachs invested roughly $6 billion in technology, and CEO David Solomon encouraged this year’s interns to experiment with AI in his annual letter. Posnett believes young professionals across industries should follow that guidance by learning faster, preparing more thoroughly, and spending more time on higher-value work. For Goldman’s investment banking analysts, she said that often means accelerating research, such as summarizing earnings calls or examining industry trends.
However, junior employees must strike the right balance between becoming proficient with AI and relying on it too heavily, Posnett said.
She urged them to understand how the technology works, test it, use it, and recognize how it can improve productivity. Her more important advice, she said, is to invest heavily in the human abilities that AI cannot fully reproduce: asking stronger questions, developing judgment, communicating effectively, building relationships, and earning trust.
Posnett recently offered Goldman’s incoming analysts and associates five recommendations for using AI: master the technical fundamentals of investment banking, improve their questioning, use the time AI saves wisely, embrace faster apprenticeship, and concentrate on the human qualities that matter in business.
Although AI can take over many routine tasks that once shaped the early years of investment banking—such as creating slide decks and building models—Posnett said understanding the basics remains essential.
She said there is no substitute for developing technical expertise and judgment, along with a deep knowledge of markets, clients, and businesses. If employees do not understand an AI-generated answer, the answer itself is of little value; those capabilities can be built only through experience and repetition.