City Exec: Gen Z expected to start businesses as AI kills entry-level jobs

As AI reshapes white-collar work and graduate programs shrink, one city veteran says the safest protection might be to stop waiting for callbacks — and start building something.

Quentin Nason, a 35-year finance veteran who spent two decades in investment banking and 15 years in asset management, saw his children and countless students hit a wall trying to break into finance.

Through City Pay It Forward, his independent, self-funded charity which teaches financial literacy in schools across the UK and US, the former Deutsche Bank chief executive and now vice-chairman of the London Foundation for Banking and Finance, said he sees evidence every day of how difficult it is for graduates to get their foot in the door.

“We have a generation, the generation coming up now, where we say, ‘Go to the best schools, study hard, get the grades, you know, take out the student loans,’ right?” he told Business Insider.

“They’re coming out now, and they said I did what you wanted, and I studied hard, and I did everything you told me, and where’s my job?” he said.

“This social contract seems broken.”

The AI ​​tightens the first rung

Nason said entry-level jobs in the City of London and Wall Street are disappearing, with competition so fierce that “there’s less than a 1% chance you’ll get a job.”

He blames a perfect storm of AI-based mass applications and a decline in the number of graduates.

“Recruiters are overwhelmed, candidates receive no feedback, they are crickets. The process is dehumanized.”

This pressure shows up in the hard data.

A Stanford University study in August found a 13% decline in employment for early-career workers ages 22 to 25 in jobs with the highest exposure to AI, including software engineering and customer service.

The researchers found that by mid-2025, employment of younger developers was down nearly 20% from its peak in 2022, even as employment of older cohorts increased.

In August, PwC confirmed it would cut graduate recruitment by around a third in the US over the next three years and by 200 roles in the UK, saying “the rapid pace of technological change is reshaping the way we work”.

A generation out of breath

For Nason, the result is a simmering crisis of expectations.

“They did what society told them to do, worked hard, went to university, got £50,000 ($67,000) in debt and now find themselves locked out,” he said.

He fears frustration will erupt soon. He pointed out that the protests in Nepal and Peru were the first signs of a violent reaction from young people.

“They are mobilizing quickly,” he said. “Anger boils.”

Entrepreneurship as an escape route

Yet amid these bleak prospects, Nason sees clear opportunity in entrepreneurship.

He said his charity now emphasizes startup thinking and financial literacy for students, moving from traditional career coaching to what he calls the “language of entrepreneurship.”

He cited Warren Buffett, who told Vanity Fair in 2011 that he had read a study finding that the age at which people started their first business was one of the biggest predictors of future success, although Buffett did not identify the study.

“Starting a business and not only being good at math, at reading, at speaking, at confidence, at drive, it’s an amalgamation of so many skills, and if you’re able to harness that at a young age, then you’re able to follow the 10,000 hour rule, right?” he says, referring to Malcolm Gladwell’s theory that mastery requires 10,000 hours of practice.

“In a world where everything is changing,” he said, “that’s a very powerful combination.”

He also said he wants Generation Z to look beyond traditional financial centers to the next wave of automation, robotics, blockchain and drones.

“Rather than chasing yesterday’s jobs, chase tomorrow’s,” he said.

Even as AI erodes entry-level roles, Nason remains hopeful.

“Half of the industries that will exist in the future don’t exist today, and we’ll find out in the next five years,” he said.

“The challenge is trying to find where the tide is going.”