Augmented, Not Replaced: The Impact of AI on Equity Research Analysts

The adoption of AI tools into professional workflows has the chance to revolutionize major industries such as the financial services industry. Because equity research is a space that is heavily dependent on data aggregation, forecasting, and report generation, there is a threat of AI replacing human analysts in the next five years. The goal of this study is to determine how the adoption of AI tools will affect the equity research career field. To achieve this goal, a mixed-method approach is employed through a quantitative and qualitative survey. Results from the survey indicate that most finance professionals are already using AI tools in their workflows which leads to increased job satisfaction and time savings. Although many professionals believe AI will eventually perform certain research analyst tasks such as data aggregation and report generation, few see these careers fully being replaced in the next five years. To help augment and improve the career field in the short term, firms can increase investment in AI training for their employees which would increase analyst productivity, job satisfaction, and please investors all without replacing human analysts.