July 21, 2026 — Artificial intelligence isn’t slowing hiring on U.S. equity trading desks—at least not yet.
U.S. equity trading volumes are near record-high levels, and U.S. brokers expect that surge in activity to accelerate. Two-thirds of the buy-side equity traders participating in a new study from Crisil Coalition Greenwich expect trading volumes to increase as a wave of high-profile IPOs such as SpaceX and expected deals from OpenAI, Stripe and Klarna drive primary and secondary market activity.
As trading desks make plans to deal with these growing volumes, roughly half of brokers expect to increase headcount in desk coverage (52%), on-desk trade assistants (48%) and algo-sales (45%).
“The employment outlook in U.S. equity trading remains more positive than many might expect in an era dominated by automation headlines,” says Jesse Forster, Senior Analyst in Market Structure & Technology at Crisil Coalition Greenwich and author of U.S. equity electronic trading: The broker view 2026. “AI is not yet translating into a broad hiring retrenchment on trading desks.”
As AI Advances, the Human Element Persists
Despite the favorable hiring trends, junior employees, especially those entering support or assistant roles, increasingly worry that AI will narrow the traditional path to what were once lucrative careers in equity trading.
Brokers are moving quickly to apply AI throughout workflows. About a third of brokers claim to use AI for real-time algo optimization (32%), venue selection (29%), and market data analysis (29%). Roughly another 40% expect to adopt AI for these functions soon.
Use cases are also broadening. While only 12% of brokers currently use AI for compliance or surveillance, 44% plan to do so soon. Just 6% currently use AI in strategy selection, though another 35% expect near-term adoption.
Although study participants broadly agree that AI will absorb a lot of the manual, repetitive work familiar to support roles, trading-desk heads point out that clients still want people around the process, especially where service, oversight and judgment are involved.
“The human element is actually becoming more central, not less,” says Jesse Forster. “As automation handles routine tasks, brokers see rising value in judgment, client relationships, exception management, and the ability to explain and defend decisions— skills machines still cannot replicate.”
U.S. equity electronic trading: The broker view 2026 presents the results of a Q2 2026 study for which the firm interviewed sell-side electronic equities professionals. In addition to assessing trading desk hiring plans and AI adoption trends, the report identifies and analyzes brokers’ top business threat (margin compression) and source of frustration (internal technology issues). The report also shares trading desk perspectives on new trading venues, the alleged commoditization of electronic trading and 24-hour trading, which only 15% of traders believe will benefit their businesses.