Wall Street Pays $25,000 a Day for AI Trainers
Two former investment bankers, Felipe Sinisterra and Dave Wang, are charging banks and investment funds up to $25,000 a day to teach them how to use the AI tools they already have. According to a Bloomberg feature, they are fully booked for the next two months with clients including T. Rowe Price, Citigroup, and Bank of America.
The Service
Sinisterra and Wang’s service involves demonstrating commercial models like Anthropic’s Claude, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and Google’s Gemini to senior bankers for tasks their own staff haven’t yet mastered. For instance, they’ve shown how to analyze a startup founder’s video pitch using Gemini’s video-understanding mode.
The Background of the Founders
The founders’ impressive resumes bolster their service: Sinisterra worked at Goldman Sachs and Bank of America before leading fintech investments at SoftBank, while Wang was at Morgan Stanley and SoftBank Latin America.
The Demand
Banks aren’t struggling with model access; they’re facing challenges in applying existing AI tools to specific tasks, such as:
- Earnings interpretation
- Market analysis prompting
- Due diligence synthesis
- Pitch deck review
The high price point of $25,000 a day signals the value and urgency of their service to procurement departments. It also outpaces what big-four consulting firms charge for comparable training engagements, reflecting a broader trend towards smaller consultancies offering AI-specific services.
Future Prospects
The longer-term question is whether the trainer category will compress as more AI tools become mainstream and readily accessible.