The message from America's next generation of financial advisors is unambiguous: they are not afraid of artificial intelligence. What concerns them is what their future employers might end up doing with it.
That tension sits near the center of the recently published 2026 FinServ Foundation Student Survey, produced in partnership with FP Transitions, which gathered responses from 100 students pursuing careers in financial services.
The findings arrive against a backdrop of mounting anxiety on college campuses about AI's effect on early-career employment – an anxiety that is no longer quite as silent or abstract as it might have been before.
This spring, technology executives at universities from Arizona to California were met with boos and walkouts as they praised AI's promise to graduating classes.
At Stanford University's June 14 commencement, as many as 200 students walked out as Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai took the podium – part of a broader pattern that led Pichai to sidestep any direct mention of AI in his speech entirely, according to multiple reports covering the ceremony. Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt was likewise booed at the University of Arizona weeks earlier after speaking about AI's inevitability in young people's working lives.
In the FinServ Foundation survey, 64% of student respondents cited over-reliance on automation and the loss of human interaction as their top concern about AI's long-term effects on wealth management. Worries about the accuracy of AI outputs (63%), data privacy risks (57%), ethical impacts (52%), and job displacement (47%) followed in close succession.
A new report from the World Economic Forum this week, produced in collaboration with PwC, identifies financial services as one of the sectors with the highest AI exposure at the entry level globally. The report cites research finding a 16% decline in entry-level jobs in AI-exposed fields in the United States since late 2022, when OpenAI announced the category-defining launch of ChatGPT.
The WEF report notes the decline began nearly a year before ChatGPT's public release, meaning the structural pressure on junior roles predated the current AI boom. But it also flagged that three-quarters of senior leaders in financial services expect significant AI-related structural realignment specifically at the junior level – almost twice as high as their expectations for mid- or senior-level roles.
"Where [students are] really concerned is that AI could replace those entry-level roles – automating those things that young advisors could be in the room, in the meeting taking notes and passively learning these skills," said Elise Rogers, vice president of marketing at FP Transitions. "How do we still retain that education journey?"
The stakes are high because the advisory profession is already running a deficit. Jamie Hopkins, president of the FinServ Foundation and managing director at Bryn Mawr Trust, noted that the industry logged a net loss of approximately 4,000 advisors in 2025.
"We had a net advisor loss of 4,000 advisors in 2025 and we have this aging advisory ownership workforce – most of the books of business are 60, late 50s advisors with not a lot of young talent on their teams today," Hopkins said. "We actually still need more coming in the front door."
According to the WEF, using AI to eliminate entry-level volume rather than redesign entry-level roles risks hollowing out the organizational capability-building that firms depend on over a decade or more.
Many organizations, Hopkins noted, are moving toward a diamond-shaped team model: fewer entry-level workers at the base, a wider band of experienced mid-level staff in the middle, and a narrowing again at the senior tier. While it could lead to more efficient teams in the short term, he sees potential risks to the workforce further down the road.
"If every company moves to a diamond-shaped workforce, eventually they all burn down because you don't have enough entry-level spots," Hopkins said.
"I do worry about the ability to train people on the base level components of advice if we start automating it – because when you do that, people don't know how to fix things when things break. Not year one, not year two, but five or seven years into this."
Despite concerns American graduates have around AI, the students in the FinServ Foundation report are not anti-tech. Nearly 40% said evolving technology makes financial planning a more appealing career. Respondents reported using AI for approximately five hours per week on average, with fewer than 9% using it for an hour or less. And approximately 73% rated AI adoption by prospective employers as moderately to extremely important – placing similar weight on employers who would provide structured training on AI tools.
Still, Hopkins flagged a meaningful pullback in how young people feel about the technology.
"They're not as high on it as companies were expecting them to be two years ago," he said. "The fact it's not their top priority – it might be worse next year than it is this year, because that's really shifted very quickly."
The FinServ Foundation survey found that approximately one in five respondents remain uncertain about how emerging technologies will reshape their early careers. Concerns about skills obsolescence were clear and present in the WEF report, where 28% of entry-level workers globally shared a belief that half or fewer of their current skills will still be relevant within three years.
To help reassure the next generation, the FinServ survey report called on firms to be clear about the benefits of technology as an enhancer, not as a replacement, for advisor talent. "Firms that clearly communicate how technology enhances advisor capabilities will be better positioned to attract next-generation talent."
For Rogers, the rosy case for AI depends on whether it helps advisors serve more clients at scale, while improving access to financial planning for people who currently cannot afford it.
"AI is going to come into the industry and it is here. ... Does the adoption of AI help us build more efficient businesses so that advisors can in fact focus on servicing more clients and [improving financial literacy]?" Rogers said. "There's an opportunity there for firms that are interested in that, and young advisors seem like they're motivated by that."
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