AI and entry-level jobs: What's the greatest risk in replacing early-career roles with technology?

Artificial intelligence is reshaping work at every level of organizations, but its impact is perhaps most visible at the start of careers.

Globally, more than one in three young workers (37%) are employed in occupations with medium to high exposure to AI-driven task change. In some regions, that figure rises considerably to three in four young workers. The ways in which organizations respond to these shifts will have significant implications not only for productivity, but also for how future talent is developed – and how people are able to access opportunity.

Workers themselves recognize the pace of change. More than a quarter (28%) of entry-level workers believe that half or fewer of their current skills will still be relevant in three years' time. As AI is increasingly embedded in workplaces, it is raising difficult questions about how entry-level work should evolve, and about the role of early-career pathways in building future capability.

We recently asked leaders from business, education and technology about the most serious risk that companies face if they choose to significantly eliminate entry-level jobs in favour of AI, and what can they do to address it.

This is what they had to say.

“The single-biggest mistake companies can make is to treat entry-level jobs as disposable. If firms eliminate them too aggressively in favour of AI, they will destroy the pipeline that produces future managers, leaders, and institutional memory. It also limits opportunities for on-the-job learning that is essential for career growth. Critical thinking, communication, leadership, and ethical decision-making are built through practice and experience – not solely through AI-assisted work. If these roles disappear, the result is not just a talent problem; it is a succession crisis.

“There is also a fairness problem. The social impact of removing the entry level is like removing the staircase connecting the ground and second floors of a building, while expecting the rest of the floors to remain populated and relevant. When the path and number of good jobs narrow, the impact will fall unevenly on first-generation professionals, career changers, and workers without elite networks. Companies that move too fast will widen the gap between people already prepared for an AI workplace and everyone else, creating a more polarized, less mobile, and ultimately less resilient labour force.

“The answer is not to romanticize jobs, but to redesign them. Companies should automate repetitive tasks, not the learning environment. They should protect apprenticeships, rotational programs, mentoring, and AI-supported training that help junior staff learn faster while still doing real work.

“In short, let’s use AI skill development to amplify and strengthen entry-level talent, not erase it.”

“Many companies are tempted to eliminate entry-level roles in favour of AI, to drive immediate productivity gains. They reason, not incorrectly, that much of the rote work that’s done by junior employees can be easily automated. But this short-term perspective overlooks a critical risk: by eliminating junior roles, leaders are effectively cutting off their future talent pipeline.

“On Indeed, junior-level job postings fell 7% year-over-year in 2025, while senior-level postings rose 4%. That gap is a warning sign. Companies are eroding the entry point of their own leadership ladder.

“Junior employees do more than perform tasks. When they tackle foundational work – sifting through data, writing first drafts, or solving routine problems – they build the subject-matter expertise and professional intuition that cannot be taught in a seminar. If you delegate all this to AI, your team never learns how the business actually functions. You will eventually find yourself with no one capable of handling the complex, senior-level decisions that AI cannot yet master.

“You need to set productive guardrails for how your junior employees use AI, to ensure they’re building long-term skills, not using it as a crutch. The unemployment rate for recent graduates hit a three-year high of 5.7% in the fourth quarter of 2025. This generation of capable workers is being squeezed out right when companies will need them most.

“Here are three tactical ways to protect your talent pipeline: the "human first" rule requires junior staff to research or draft a topic manually before they are allowed to use AI to refine it. They must understand the "why" behind the work before they automate the "how"; shifting focus to review means training junior employees to act as "editors." Their primary job should be to critique, verify, and improve AI outputs, which builds deep subject matter expertise; collaborative problem solving involves pairing junior staff with senior mentors to solve problems using AI together. The goal should be the discussion of strategy, not just the final output.

“Don't trade your company’s long-term capabilities for short-term gains. True innovation lies in empowering people to work alongside AI, ensuring they are prepared to be the future leaders of the organization.”

“The most serious risk is that an organization's talent quietly stops evolving. Entry-level roles are not simply a cost line; they are an engine of renewal.

“When young people work alongside experienced colleagues, something more than knowledge transfer seems to come from that interaction. New kinds of professionals can emerge – with profiles neither generation might have imagined on their own. Remove the entry point, and a company may look more efficient for a few quarters, but its talent is at risk of becoming frozen at precisely the moment it needs to evolve fastest. This is not only a corporate question but a societal one. And in fields like marketing, where diverse perspectives across generations are the raw material of creativity, a static talent pool would, in time, diminish the work itself.

“We do not claim to have a clear answer. But we suspect it lies not in preserving old job descriptions, but in reinventing them – through small, honest experiments. Our work has never been defined by fixed workflows; it is defined by the value we create for clients. With that principle in mind, we have begun rethinking early careers. In our creative teams, for example, some new hires now work directly alongside senior leaders, using AI to build broad capabilities early rather than climbing a narrow ladder rung by rung. We are still learning what works.

“What we feel more confident about is this: treat young talent as a forward investment, not a cost. Technology will keep evolving. We hope our people will, too – together, across generations.”

“The single most serious risk companies face if they significantly eliminate entry-level jobs in favour of AI is the weakening of the talent and succession pipeline needed to sustain future growth.

“Many organizations are already grappling with talent scarcity and succession challenges. At the same time, AI is accelerating the pace of change, increasing the need to continuously adapt, innovate, and build new capabilities. Growth in the AI era will not require less talent; it will require talent that can learn faster, exercise sound judgment, and navigate increasing complexity.

“This is where the risk emerges. Entry-level roles have traditionally been where people build the experience, context, and judgment that later enable them to become experts, managers, and leaders. If organizations reduce these opportunities without creating alternative pathways for development, they risk weakening the very capabilities they will depend on in the future. The more capable AI becomes, the more valuable human judgment becomes – judgment developed through experience.

“To address this risk, organizations must strike the right balance. The answer is not to preserve entry-level jobs exactly as they exist today, nor is it to automate them away entirely. While many routine tasks that once formed the foundation of early-career roles can now be handled by AI, the opportunity is to redesign work with greater intention. For human-resources executives and other business leaders, the focus should be on accelerating the development of capabilities that will matter most in the future, including critical thinking, strategic problem-solving, adaptability, collaboration, resilience, and the ability to continuously learn and develop others.

“In the AI era, talent strategy and business strategy are becoming inseparable. Organizations that view AI solely as a tool for efficiency risk optimizing for the short term while limiting their future capacity to grow. Those that create the greatest value from AI will be the ones that use it to elevate human potential, enabling people to contribute at a higher level earlier in their careers and building a stronger pipeline of talent ready to innovate, adapt, and lead through change.”