Wall Street’s newest employees may soon find themselves in managerial roles—not over people, but over AI agents. Teresa Heitsenrether, JPMorgan’s chief data and analytics officer, predicted that early-career professionals will gain leadership experience by overseeing digital colleagues powered by agentic AI. Speaking at the Evident AI Symposium in New York, she said this shift could accelerate the path to management, bypassing traditional, slow-burning career ladders. Heitsenrether emphasized that future managers will be responsible for workflows involving autonomous AI systems capable of executing complex, end-to-end tasks. These digital teammates, she noted, could serve as training grounds for young professionals to learn accountability, coordination, and process oversight—skills essential for leading human teams later on. Agentic AI, which enables AI systems to act independently and adaptively, was a central theme at the conference. Executives are grappling with how to ensure these systems are secure, consistent, and high-performing, while also redefining the role of human workers in the process. At Goldman Sachs, CIO Marco Argenti observed that the bank’s youngest employees are already leading the charge in AI adoption. He described them as “AI natives” who are not only using the technology but also teaching each other how to maximize its potential. This peer-to-peer knowledge sharing, he said, is reshaping the traditional apprenticeship model, now extending across generations of staff. Heitsenrether acknowledged the natural anxiety that comes with such rapid change, especially in a culture built on long-standing mentorship and hands-on learning. “If you’ve spent years mastering your craft through apprenticeship, the idea that your role is changing in meaningful ways is real,” she said. But at JPMorgan, resistance has diminished quickly once employees see the practical benefits. When AI tools reduce repetitive, tedious tasks and make work more efficient or enjoyable, adoption follows. She stressed that the best way to overcome hesitation is to give employees direct access to AI tools and let them experience the value firsthand. “The most valuable thing you can do is give the technology to people so that they can start to use it and experience it,” she said. As Wall Street adapts to the age of intelligent automation, the next generation of leaders may be learning their trade not in a bullpen, but in a digital workspace—managing bots before they ever manage people.