Every experienced professional was once a novice. They learned from the ground up by doing work that may now look routine: whether that be researching background information, preparing first drafts, taking minutes, checking documents, compiling data and producing basic reports.
AI increasingly performs many of those tasks. While it unquestionably creates efficiency gains today, it potentially poses a capability problem for the workforce of tomorrow.
Junior work has always been invaluable only in completing mundane tasks, but also as a training ground. The graduate who prepares the first draft learns how to structure a good document. The employee who manually reviews cases begins to recognise patterns. The junior analyst who builds the spreadsheet learns what sits behind the final number.
If AI removes the task, where does that learning happen?
Organisations need to weigh carefully the benefits of automating low-value work against the price of removing the opportunity for developmental experiences. The answer is not to preserve inefficient tasks simply for tradition’s sake. Rather it is to redesign training opportunities alongside the work itself.
That might mean asking junior employees to critique AI outputs, compare AI recommendations with their own analysis, investigate exceptions or explain the reasoning behind a final decision.
Managers will need to become more deliberate about creating experiences that develop judgement. Otherwise, we may produce employees who can supervise AI outputs without ever having developed the underlying expertise required to determine whether those outputs are good.
Be AI-Wise
When deciding what AI should take over, managers need to weigh up:
What time will this save?
And what learning might disappear with it?
Efficiency matters. So too does building the people who will eventually need to make the difficult decisions.
Leadership question:
Which entry-level tasks in your organisation are also quietly functioning as training – and what replaces that learning if AI takes them over?
GAPS Professional Writing helps organisations build practical AI capability, strengthen workplace writing and redesign workflows for effective human-AI collaboration. Visit www.gapswriting.com.