For years, the banking industry has relied on a fairly simple way of developing talent. Junior employees start with routine work, learn from their mistakes and gradually take on more responsibility.
A graduate might spend months preparing reports, checking customer information or assisting with financial reconciliations. None of it sounds particularly exciting. But somewhere between the first assignment and the hundredth, something important happens. They begin to understand how the business works.
Now artificial intelligence (AI) is changing that process.
Many of the tasks that once gave junior professionals their first taste of banking are becoming increasingly automated. The work gets done faster, but what happens to the people who were supposed to learn from doing it?
That question deserves serious attention from South Africa’s banking and insurance leaders.
At Cornerstone Performance Solutions’ (CPS) Future Skills Forum on 8 October 2026, industry experts explored what happens to career development when AI begins taking over entry-level responsibilities.
The concern was clear. If organisations remove the work that builds experience, they need another way to develop the professionals who will eventually lead their businesses.
The first rung of the career ladder is changing
Vincent Maher, CEO of Broadbrand, raised an uncomfortable possibility during the discussion: AI is cutting away the bottom of the traditional career ladder.
Consider how a junior banking analyst develops professional judgement. They start by gathering information, preparing basic analyses and checking figures. Their manager reviews the work, identifies mistakes and explains what needs improving.
Over time, those small corrections become valuable experiences. AI can now assist with much of that preparation. Customer onboarding, know-your-customer checks, reconciliations and routine analysis are all areas where automation is changing how financial institutions operate.
The difficulty is that the remaining work often requires skills that previously took years to develop. Employers still need people who can interpret information, question assumptions, communicate clearly and make sound decisions. But where will those capabilities come from if the opportunities to practise them disappear? For learning and development (L&D) teams, this is becoming a workforce planning issue, not simply a technology discussion.
Experience doesn’t arrive with a qualification
A formal banking qualification provides essential knowledge. It helps professionals understand financial products, regulatory requirements, ethical responsibilities and the principles behind good banking practice. Yet anyone who has managed a team knows that knowledge and experience are different things.
A new employee might understand credit risk in theory but struggle when a client’s financial circumstances don’t fit neatly into a standard assessment. That judgement develops through exposure, practice and feedback.
Anton de Souza, a chartered accountant and former CEO, CFO and COO, discussed the importance of curiosity, resilience and an inquiring mind when recruiting people into an AI-enabled workplace. Technical competence still matters. So does the willingness to question information and learn from unfamiliar situations.
For South African employers, the challenge goes beyond individual careers. When junior roles become harder to access, organisations risk weakening the pipeline of experienced professionals available for future leadership positions.
In a country already facing substantial youth unemployment, protecting meaningful entry points into financial services also has wider economic importance. The answer isn’t to preserve inefficient processes purely for training purposes. It’s to rethink how experience is developed.
Managers need to understand AI before their teams do
There’s a practical problem with expecting junior employees to use AI responsibly when their managers don’t understand how it affects the work. How can a manager evaluate an AI-assisted credit assessment without knowing what the technology can and cannot reliably do? Maher argued that leaders need to stay ahead of their teams in understanding AI. De Souza described this as becoming AI fit.
That requires more than attending a technology demonstration. Managers need opportunities to experiment with AI themselves, understand its limitations and recognise where human judgement remains essential. They also need clear organisational guidelines.
Simply encouraging employees to experiment without appropriate training and governance can create unnecessary risks, particularly in a regulated industry handling sensitive customer information. For banking and insurance organisations, AI adoption should include a clear understanding of which tasks can be supported by technology, which decisions require human oversight and who remains accountable.
Turn everyday work into deliberate learning
The traditional workplace offered junior employees repeated opportunities to learn, even when nobody formally called it training. As those repetitions decline, managers will need to create learning opportunities more deliberately. Take a customer onboarding process. Instead of allowing AI to complete the checks while a junior employee simply approves the result, a manager could ask the employee to review an exception, explain the risks and recommend what should happen next.
The manager then discusses the reasoning, not merely whether the answer was correct. A similar approach could work in insurance claims, financial advice and business banking. Teams can also document how they perform important tasks, including the standards they expect and the reasons behind particular decisions.
These instructions can guide AI-assisted processes while helping new employees understand the organisation’s approach. The aim is to make learning visible within everyday work, rather than hoping experience develops on its own.
Technology can support learning, but mentorship remains human
One of the most interesting discussions at the forum concerned the relationship between AI and mentorship. Technology can provide quick responses, suggest improvements and help employees reflect on their decisions. What it cannot fully replace is the experience of a manager who understands the organisation, knows the employee and can explain why a particular decision matters.
Dr Cliff Brunette discussed how CPS is using an AI reflection partner to address a familiar problem in online education. Previously, learners could complete reflective activities without receiving meaningful responses. The AI reflection partner provides feedback and prompts learners to consider what they may have overlooked.
It gives reflection a more active role in learning. Human mentors remain essential, particularly when employees face difficult decisions, uncertainty or pressure. Managers must also recognise that AI can remove natural stopping points from work. Employees may feel pressure to keep producing, reviewing and improving without knowing when enough is enough. Building resilience includes helping people establish sensible boundaries.
The next generation of banking leaders needs a new starting point
Since 1999, CPS has focused on developing professional capability across South Africa’s financial services sector. The changing workplace reinforces an important principle: professional education must connect knowledge with the realities of the job. For HR leaders, L&D professionals and line managers, the immediate question is worth asking. Where does a junior employee in your organisation actually gain experience today?
If the answer still depends on routine tasks that AI is beginning to absorb, the development model needs attention. Future banking careers will continue to require technical knowledge, professional judgement, adaptability and the ability to work with people. Those capabilities don’t appear automatically because someone has access to better technology.
Someone has to create the opportunities to develop them. And increasingly, that responsibility sits with the people managing the team. We explored this with a panel of industry leaders at the Future Skills Forum.
