Research programme of Elite Careers StrategyUnited States · AI and selection · Official-source research
Where is AI explicitly entering elite US selection?
The reviewed evidence shows two distinct mechanisms. Citi says AI can help identify and align applicant skills to jobs while human beings retain hiring and suitability decisions. Ropes & Gray has introduced AI literacy itself as an application question for its 2L summer programme.
Citi: AI assists matching, humans decide
Citi's current Careers Privacy Notice says automated processing, including AI, may identify and align candidate skills and abilities to job openings and other suitable roles. Citi also states that it does not rely solely on automated processing for applicant decisions and that hiring decisions, including suitability, are conducted, checked and decided by individuals. Official source · SIG-241.
Ropes & Gray: AI literacy becomes a candidate signal
Ropes & Gray's official site reports that its co-hiring partner described a new prompt added to the firm's 2L summer-program application asking candidates what they do day-to-day to keep up with AI development as it relates to their future legal practice. Official source · SIG-248.
Why the distinction matters
These are not the same phenomenon. Citi's evidence concerns employer-side AI assistance in recruitment with human decision control. Ropes & Gray's evidence concerns candidate-side AI literacy being elicited as part of an application. WGI keeps those mechanisms separate rather than collapsing both into a generic claim that “AI is used in hiring.”
What this does not prove
This two-institution subset does not establish how common either practice is across US banking or BigLaw, whether either factor materially changes selection outcomes, or how much weight any individual recruiter gives to AI literacy.
Denominator: two named institutions with canonical, explicit AI-related selection evidence reviewed on 14 September 2026.