Most of us can probably remember the less glamorous parts of starting our careers. The spreadsheets nobody wanted to update, the presentation that your manager didn't have time to draft, the clunky metal filing cabinets, and the meetings where you spent more time listening than contributing.
At the time, much of it felt like donkey work. Looking back, though, those experiences taught us far more than we realised.
Those early tasks helped us understand how businesses operate. They exposed us to different stakeholders, taught us how to prioritise workloads and face real challenges. They gave us opportunities to make mistakes and build confidence. While the work itself may not have been particularly exciting, the learning that came from it was invaluable.
The AI Conversation
Much of the discussion around AI within businesses so far has understandably focused on productivity.
Organisations are exploring how technology can reduce administrative burden, improve efficiency and free people up to focus on higher-value work. We can't argue, the benefits of AI are significant, but there seems to be one impact that people don’t seem to be talking about because it isn’t immediately obvious.
Here’s the question we think it's crucial to be asking: If AI takes on many of the tasks that have traditionally been given to junior employees, where will the next generation gain the experience that helps them develop into future leaders?
How Careers Have Traditionally Developed
For decades, careers have followed a fairly familiar pattern. People started by learning the fundamentals, gradually building knowledge and confidence through exposure to work. Over time, they took on more responsibility, developed stronger commercial awareness and learned how to navigate increasingly complex situations.
Very few people started their careers by shaping strategy or influencing major business decisions. Speak to almost any senior professional and they'll tell you that much of what made them successful wasn't learned on a training course. It came from watching experienced colleagues, understanding how decisions were made, getting involved and gradually developing the judgement that only comes with experience.
How AI Is Changing Junior Roles
Many of the tasks that once provided that exposure can now be completed in a fraction of the time using AI. Research that might have taken half a day can be completed in minutes. Data can be analysed or presentations can be assembled far more quickly than before.
From a productivity perspective, that's fantastic.
The question is whether we're focusing so heavily on the output that we're overlooking the role these activities played in helping people learn. Those jobs, though they seem menial at the time were never simply about producing a report or compiling information.
A Growing Contradiction
We're beginning to see expectations of junior talent rise. Employers increasingly want graduates and early career professionals to arrive with stronger commercial awareness, practical experience and the ability to contribute more quickly. That expectation is understandable in a world where technology can handle a lot of the admin work that previously occupied people's time.
However, there is a potential contradiction emerging. If we reduce opportunities for people to gain experience, while simultaneously expecting juniors to arrive with more experience, or skip hiring the lower level roles at all, jumping straight to managerial level, we risk creating a gap that becomes increasingly difficult to bridge.
The challenge isn't whether AI can do the work. It's whether we're being intentional enough about how people develop when some of those opportunities disappear.
More Than a Hiring Challenge
It's easy to frame this as a hiring challenge, but in reality it's a workforce planning issue. Organisations spend considerable time discussing succession plans, future skills requirements and leadership pipelines. Yet those future leaders don't simply appear, as if by magic, when they're needed.
The decisions businesses make today about entry-level opportunities could have a significant impact on the strength of their talent pipeline years from now. If fewer people are given the opportunity to build experience, businesses may eventually find themselves competing for an increasingly limited pool of experienced professionals.
In that sense, the conversation about AI isn't only about productivity. It's also about capability. How companies balance efficiency today with talent development tomorrow may prove just as important as the technology itself.
Rethinking Talent Development
None of this is an argument against AI. In fact, the companies that embrace technology effectively are likely to be better positioned for the future. The bigger question is whether businesses are being equally deliberate about how they develop people as they are about how they improve efficiency.
Perhaps the answer lies in redesigning development pathways rather than trying to preserve old ways of working.
If technology removes some of the tasks that once helped people learn, businesses may need to create alternative opportunities for exposure and growth. That could involve bringing junior employees into projects earlier, increasing access to mentoring, creating more opportunities for cross-functional collaboration or giving people greater visibility of strategic decision-making.
In many respects, AI has the potential to accelerate development rather than hinder it. By reducing time spent on administrative work, it could create space for more meaningful learning experiences. However, that outcome won't happen by accident. We need to think intentionally about how capability is built and how future talent is nurtured.
AI Can Automate Tasks, But Not Experience
The organisations that get this balance right won't be the ones that use AI simply to do more with fewer people. They'll be the ones that use it to create more meaningful opportunities for people to learn and grow.
Technology can automate tasks, but it can't automate the judgement, confidence or awareness that comes from being human. Those qualities are built over time through exposure to real work.
After all, every senior leader was once the person doing the work nobody else wanted to do. If technology removes some of those traditional stepping stones, we need to be intentional about creating new ones. Otherwise, a decade from now, we may find ourselves facing a challenge we didn't anticipate: not a shortage of technology, but a shortage of experienced people ready to lead.
Perhaps that's the question we should be asking ourselves as AI adoption continues to gather pace. Not simply what work technology can do, but how the people entering the workforce today will gain the experience needed to lead tomorrow.
