For decades, the question was always the same: which jobs will technology eliminate? But today, artificial intelligence (AI) forces us to ask a different, and far more unsettling, question. How will organisations develop the professionals they will need in 10 or 15 years' time if AI begins by replacing entry-level jobs? Are we destroying the very factory where talent is produced?
This is a question that should now be on the agenda of every strategic discussion within organisations. Not only because AI represents an extraordinary opportunity to increase productivity, but because it has the potential to fundamentally reshape the way companies recruit, develop and renew their human capital.
Let us begin by setting the context for what is, in my view, a structural transformation of the labour market. The figures help illustrate the scale of the change. McKinsey estimates that generative AI could add more than US$4 trillion per year to the global economy through productivity gains. At the same time, virtually every major company is already investing in AI, although only a minority considers itself to have reached a high level of maturity in its use. The question is therefore no longer whether AI will transform work. The real question is how we prepare for that transformation.
While it is impossible to predict all of its consequences, four major impacts already seem clear:
1. A significant increase in productivity. Organisations that successfully integrate AI will produce more, faster and with fewer resources, increasing the competitive pressure on those that fail to keep pace.
2. A profound redefinition of the most valuable skills. Critical thinking, creativity, judgement, leadership, empathy and decision-making in ambiguous situations will become even more important. These remain the capabilities that distinguish humans from machines. At least for now, I would add.
3. The transformation of organisational structures. Many intermediate tasks are likely to disappear. Teams will become smaller and more highly skilled, while each professional will be able to multiply their execution capacity through AI.
4. The gradual disappearance of entry-level jobs that have traditionally served as the training ground for future leaders. This is perhaps the least discussed impact and, paradoxically, one of the most important.
For decades, almost every profession followed a similar path. Doctors, lawyers, consultants, engineers, auditors and managers all began their careers by carrying out operational tasks. It was through this work that they learned their profession, accumulated experience, made mistakes, observed more experienced colleagues and developed what truly creates value: knowledge acquired through practice.
These are precisely the tasks that AI now performs most efficiently. The conclusion seems obvious. If a company has to choose between a recent graduate and a professional with 15 or 20 years of experience enhanced by AI, the decision becomes much more straightforward.
In reality, AI is increasing the return on experience. For decades, experience mattered because it enabled people to perform their jobs better. Today, it has become even more valuable because it enables professionals to validate, challenge, contextualise and make decisions based on what AI produces. Technology democratises access to knowledge, but it also makes experience scarcer and, consequently, more valuable.
Interestingly, a recent PwC study points in this direction. In roles that are most exposed to AI, employers are increasingly seeking capabilities traditionally associated with senior professionals, such as judgement, influence, leadership and decision-making. AI is not simply automating tasks. It is raising the value of the human capabilities that remain indispensable.
For many years, we repeated that companies were looking for youth. Perhaps we are now entering a period in which they are looking above all for experience. But if we stop hiring young people, who will become tomorrow's experienced professionals?
The more I reflect on this issue, the more convinced I become that this could turn into one of the greatest market failures of the coming decade. Individually, every company has an economic incentive to reduce entry-level recruitment. Collectively, however, we risk undermining the renewal of the skills on which the entire economy will depend in the future.
This is where the debate ceases to be purely a business issue and becomes a matter of public policy. Just as governments intervene to promote vocational training, innovation and the green transition, it may become necessary to create mechanisms that ensure meaningful entry opportunities into the labour market.
Is it too early to discuss minimum hiring quotas for young professionals? Should tax incentives be introduced for companies that maintain structured graduate trainee programmes? Should universities, businesses and governments share responsibility for developing new learning models in which young professionals work alongside experienced colleagues supported by AI? Today, no one knows what the best answers are. But I would argue that ignoring the problem could prove extremely costly.
For decades, companies competed for talent. Over the next decade, they may compete for experience. There is just one problem: experience cannot be bought. It has to be built. If we stop hiring those who are just beginning their careers, we interrupt the very process through which experience is created.
Perhaps this is one of AI's greatest paradoxes. The technology that promises to make organisations more intelligent may ultimately destroy the principal factory where tomorrow's experienced professionals are produced.
AI may accelerate work. However, it remains incapable of accelerating what takes years to build: professional maturity. I believe we have a new crisis to manage: it would be one I would call “The talent pipeline crisis”.
Nuno Moreira da Cruz, Dean For Executive Education