Samir Dutta, CEO and Co-Founder of Farsight AI.
As AI takes on more of the work once assigned to junior employees, leaders in financial services and other apprenticeship-driven industries face a difficult question: How will people develop the judgment that used to come from doing that work themselves?
The concern is understandable. For decades, early-career employees built expertise by working alongside more experienced colleagues. Repetitive execution was part of the deal.
AI is changing that equation. As organizations automate more of the work once assigned to junior employees, leaders are right to worry that they’re stripping out the training ground for professional growth.
It’s not a hypothetical problem. McKinsey found that 51% of organizations say generative AI is already reducing their need for entry-level roles, raising questions about how future employees will gain the experience and judgment those roles have historically provided.
AI presents organizations with an opportunity to rethink how they develop talent. They should focus less on preserving every traditional task and more on creating the experiences that build judgment, sharpen critical thinking and improve decision-making.
Where Judgment Is Actually Built
Early in my career as an investment banker, I spent countless hours building presentations, updating financial models, gathering research and preparing materials for senior bankers. Like many junior analysts, I assumed those long hours were where expertise and judgment were built.
Looking back, I’ve realized the repetitive execution wasn’t what shaped my judgment. The real learning happened in the conversations that followed. Senior bankers challenged my assumptions, explained why analyses changed, refined recommendations and demonstrated how they approached complex client decisions. The work opened the door, but the coaching and feedback were what actually developed the expertise and judgment I rely on today.
Those experiences taught me how to evaluate trade-offs, defend recommendations and make better decisions—skills that couldn’t be developed through execution alone. AI now creates room for that learning to happen earlier.
As repetitive work becomes increasingly automated, you have the opportunity to ensure your organization is intentional about giving junior employees earlier exposure to the experiences that actually accelerate professional growth.
How To Redesign Professional Development For An AI-Driven Workplace
If AI is changing how judgment and expertise are developed, leaders need to change how employees learn.
Rather than trying to preserve every task AI can now perform, focus on creating more opportunities for employees to build judgment and develop critical skills that prepare them for the next stage of their careers.
Teach employees to evaluate AI, not simply use it.
As AI becomes embedded in junior employees’ day-to-day work, knowing how to prompt a model is only one piece of AI literacy. You also need to help employees judge when AI is reliable, when its outputs should be challenged and when additional human oversight is required.
That means teaching employees to evaluate AI-generated work the same way they would evaluate a colleague’s recommendation. Are the assumptions sound? Is important context missing? Does the analysis align with your organization’s expertise and business objectives? Those questions help employees strengthen decision-making while ensuring AI supports human judgment instead of replacing it.
One practical way to build those skills is to make AI output part of the learning process. Ask employees to explain why they accepted or rejected an AI recommendation, compare different approaches or defend how they refined an AI-generated draft. Those discussions reveal how employees think and give managers a chance to coach reasoning, not just review the final deliverable.
Over time, the ability to evaluate AI effectively may become just as valuable as the ability to use it.
Introduce strategic thinking earlier.
Instead of asking employees to spend hours producing deliverables, AI creates opportunities to involve them in evaluating assumptions, comparing approaches and understanding why certain recommendations are made. These experiences develop professional judgment in ways repetitive execution cannot.
Historically, strategic thinking came later because junior professionals spent much of their time producing the work that supported those discussions. As AI reduces the time required for research, analysis and first drafts, organizations can expose employees to higher-level thinking earlier without expecting them to make decisions before they’re ready.
Consider a team preparing for a major sales opportunity. Instead of spending hours building dozens of buyer profiles, junior employees can use AI to gather initial research and spend more time discussing which stakeholders matter most, the challenges they face and how to position the solution.
AI accelerates the research, but the learning comes from interpreting the information, defending the strategy and understanding why one approach is stronger than another. Over time, that exposure helps employees develop context and judgment faster.
Teach your thinking.
AI changes where you, as a manager, can create value. Instead of spending most of your time correcting deliverables, you can spend more time explaining the thinking behind your decisions.
When reviewing a proposal, don’t just rewrite a recommendation. Explain why one approach better addresses the client’s priorities. When revising a financial analysis, walk employees through the trade-offs that influenced your conclusion. Those conversations make professional judgment visible in a way polished deliverables never can.
This also makes mentorship more intentional. Rather than expecting employees to absorb judgment simply by observing experienced colleagues, show them how you evaluate competing priorities, navigate ambiguity and make difficult decisions. By making your thought process explicit, you equip employees to apply that same reasoning as they take on greater responsibility.
As AI automates more of the execution, experienced judgment becomes one of your organization’s most valuable teaching assets.
Developing Your Talent With Intention
It’s easy to assume the way previous generations learned is the way future generations should learn. Every profession has deeply ingrained traditions, and apprenticeship has long been one of them.
AI gives leaders a reason to reconsider. If technology reduces time spent on repetitive execution, organizations can focus development more intentionally on the conversations, experiences and mentorship that shape professional judgment.
Going forward, organizations that deliberately shape apprenticeship are the ones I believe will develop judgment, not just output.
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