AI is challenging conventional models as organisations strive to integrate it for a range of operational and performance gains.

 

The impact of AI on human roles is an area of particularly live debate – especially at entry level. With AI’s ability to handle many repeatable, admin-based tasks, will it lead to the removal of whole swathes of beginner roles that are the traditional entry point for young talent into a wide range of careers?

 

There is no doubt that AI is already having some impact. Big Tech firms have pointed to AI when strimming back areas of their workforce; professional services firms are reducing their entry level intakes in some instances; in technology, there have been reports of demand for junior coders softening due to AI as the job transitions more to an oversight role.

 

However, the situation is actually nuanced as there are multiple factors at play in these changes, including economic cycles and market conditions: it is by no means only about AI.

 

For instance, management consulting revenues (a large part of the professional services sector) contracted in the UK in 2024 and only experienced very modest growth in the past 12 months after a post-pandemic boom. Large professional services firms, such as the Big Four, are naturally going to react to these market conditions by offering fewer graduate/entry level roles.

 

Nevertheless, it is clear that as AI continues to rapidly develop and becomes integrated more widely into businesses’ systems and processes, the impact on human roles will increase – and this may be most pronounced at entry level, where much of what people do is ripe for automation.

 

In this, we can include our own industry of recruitment. Consultants at the start of their career journeys traditionally spend a lot of their time on manual tasks such as sourcing roles that need to be filled, researching market information, compiling lists of potential candidates and sifting through/shortlisting applications. The requirement for people to do this will fall as AI solutions are developed.

The crucial point is that AI will change what businesses look to people to do – not remove the need for them. We will still need entry level talent in recruitment, just as they will be needed in technology, professional services and other industries, even if there may be some +/- movement around the edges. But the emphasis will shift – from a focus on learning tasks and processes to developing the human skills and attributes that make great professionals and leaders: commerciality, critical thinking, ethical and moral considerations, stakeholder engagement, and communication.

 

At the same time, individuals’ ability to understand and interpret what AI is telling them will be key. Businesses will start looking for talent that can accelerate faster into these human skills – the baseline will move up, given that most Gen Zers are already quite proficient in using AI platforms like ChatGPT and Copilot.

 

From this, it follows that AI will open up opportunities for the best talent to move into more senior and remunerative roles faster. With AI tools supporting them, bright and capable professionals may be able to perform a role that currently typically requires three years of experience after only one year, for example.

However, there is an ‘elephant in the room’. We all know – thinking back to our own personal experiences – that learning on the job in the early days, painstakingly building up the know-how, making mistakes and reflecting on them, seeking counsel and guidance from others, is a key part of how anyone becomes proficient in their field. It is the lived and learned experience that makes great professionals and leaders.

 

The question arises, therefore, of how young talent will develop that essential on-the-job knowledge if AI is helping them to leapfrog forward. This is something that has also become more complicated due to the rise of hybrid working, which has reduced the facetime with colleagues and line managers that is a critical part of the learning and teaching curve for young joiners.

 

This is an issue that businesses need to be really alive to right now, thinking ahead to prevent a capability vacuum, including at a leadership level, in the years to come. One of the key ways to tackle it is sure to lie in training and development. There will need to be a shift in training for young talent, moving the focus from tasks and processes to experiences and skills.

 

Technology itself can play a huge role here, with the potential to create situation-based simulated experiences for trainees that take them through a ‘live’ scenario with AI playing the role of a client or other stakeholder, helping them develop that learned experience.

 

A parallel here is rookie Formula One drivers, who spend a lot of time in a simulator – a safe space to learn, push themselves and crash if necessary.

 

The notion of metaverse-style virtual reality training may seem extreme, but it’s something that we can expect more and more organisations to start exploring. Companies won’t have to go to those lengths, but it’s a certainty that any organisation that wants to thrive in the future will need to devise training and development mechanisms that help entry level talent build up their skills-based muscle and baseline expertise - rather than simply teach them how to do process X or Y.

The implications of this are far-reaching, and it should be a priority issue for boards around the world. There needs to be discussion and clarity in the boardroom over what roles the business needs people to perform including at entry level; what skills and attributes are needed to execute them; how AI supports and facilitates in this; and then how the business is hiring, assessing and developing current and future talent. Once the strategy has been formed, it is critical that each part of the business executes it in relation to its own area.

 

Every industrial revolution redesigns the workforce, and the AI revolution is no different. Put these issues on your executive agenda if they’re not there already. Doing nothing is not an option. Change is all around us, and the most successful organisations will be those who take early action to anticipate and respond now.