Goldman hasn't cut its intern class by two thirds yet, but it has shrunk
If you have dreams of working for Goldman Sachs but are too young for an internship this year, you might have started gulping. You would be within your rights to.
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Goldman’s 2025 summer internships began yesterday. CEO David Solomon sent out his customary memo to the firm’s new interns. It has the usual “work hard” platitudes, but today’s students might be concerned that the memo was sent to the smallest intern class in a long, long time.
If it’s any consolation, the number seems to have at least stabilized. 2025’s 2,600-intern cohort is basically the same size as 2024’s. But Business Insider noted that it was a “slightly smaller class than last year's.” If that’s true, then it is very likely the firm’s smallest intern class in over a decade: Goldman has employed 2,900 summer interns, on average, since the class of 2015.
It’s worth noting that we didn’t manage to confirm the total intern number for 2019. There were at least 1,800 students the completed the annual intern survey, but the actual number will be higher than that. Given that there were 3,150 interns in 2018 and 2,850 in 2020, in seems safe to assume that there were 3,000 or so in 2019.
Whether that number of interns goes up or down in 2026 seems to be down to other whims. For example, AI. This time last year, Goldman was allegedly contemplating cutting the size of its new analyst classes by two-thirds on accounts of generative AI’s ability to perform functions such as building pitchbooks. Earlier this year, management consultant Bain & Co. said that “every single step of the M&A process” will be impacted by GenAI within five years.
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