Corporate apprenticeship is dead in the age of AI—unless we stop asking juniors to fetch the seniors’ coffees.
AI helps you work faster and better with fewer people, say the evangelists. AI is pushing junior-level employees out of their jobs, according to the scaremongers. Let’s navigate the middle road.
I vividly remember my first driving lesson. I had expected to be seated comfortably in the passenger seat, right next to the instructor, watching as he drove and occasionally being allowed to try something small—maybe turning on the radio, switching the indicators, or fiddling with the windshield wipers.
But nope. He shoved me into the driver’s seat, closed the doors, slammed the gas pedal, and off we went. Suddenly, I was the one behind the wheel, frantically trying not to hit anything, while sweat pooled in my palms, soaked my armpits, and collected in every other nook and cranny of my body. Naturally, the instructor had ensured those first rides were on easy roads with minimal risk. He sat next to me, offering guidance and taking over when necessary.
I had expected to learn how to drive with a more traditional way of delegation—depth-first, one car component or specific maneuver at a time. But to my horror, I was made responsible for the entire journey—breadth-first—right away. The instructor initially stayed in control, but over time, he steadily stepped back. By the thirtieth lesson, his interventions had been reduced to the occasional grunt or disapproving tssk, and my sweating had receded at a similar pace.
The Problem with Juniors
There’s plenty of buzz around AI’s impact on traditional apprenticeship models these days. Many companies have stopped hiring interns and junior-level employees, claiming they no longer provide enough value.
Senior lawyers now rely on AI to draft legal contracts—faster, cleaner, and more accurate than junior lawyers could ever manage. And expert software developers? They're giving in to the seduction of AI code generators like Claude and GitHub Copilot. These tools accelerate the value stream, and it’s apparently less painful to fix the mistakes made by machines than to patiently review the questionable code submitted by junior developers.
Agile and Lean gurus get a little teary-eyed when they see the productivity spike. “Look at our speed! Smaller teams, higher quality! This human-AI collaboration is a dream!” With happy customers and cheering shareholders, the typical Agile or Lean consultant is only thrilled to crank up the value stream and keep delivering faster and faster. As for interns and juniors? Who needs them?
But there’s an accident waiting to happen just around the corner.
Actually, there are two.
The Value of Juniors
The first problem is obvious: what happens when the seniors leave? Who takes over their work? Claude? ChatGPT? The next release of DeepSeek?
Honestly, it’s going to be a while before AI agents can handle a full legal case that includes client conversations, stakeholder alignment, and political maneuvering. Vibe coding might be trendy right now, but let’s be real—AI-generated code is still a long way from being production-ready without human prompting, reviewing, and the occasional string of senior-level profanity. We still need junior employees to take over when the seniors move on.
But beyond succession planning, there’s another crucial reason we need juniors: they help seniors break free from their mental silos. Experts often fall victim to the Curse of Knowledge. They get so entrenched in their domains that they stop noticing when the world shifts beneath them. Yesterday’s best practice might be tomorrow’s outdated assumption. It often takes someone with a fresh perspective and a Beginner’s Mind to ask the “stupid” questions that jolt experts back to reality.
Juniors aren’t just replacements. They’re catalysts for innovation in a world that refuses to sit still.
Breadth-First Delegation
Years ago, when I began my career as a public speaker, I wasn’t following a senior speaker around, doing the grunt work they didn’t want to do. I wasn’t booking their flights, designing their slides, or standing off-stage with their bottled water. I didn’t begin my speaking journey as some glorified personal assistant to an established keynote star.
That’s not how the gig economy works.
Instead, I started out as a C-level speaker, funding my own travel and accommodations, grateful just to be accepted at events. Over time, I worked my way up to B-level, when organizers began to invite me directly and offered to reimburse my travel expenses. Eventually, I reached A-level, delivering keynote speeches at larger conferences with proper compensation—justified by the value I was bringing.
From day one, I handled the entire journey myself. I had guidance and coaching from more seasoned peers, but the steering wheel was always in my hands.
That’s what I call breadth-first delegation: you get full ownership of a complete journey. The first ones are easy and the risk is low. But there are people around you to guide, support, and intervene if necessary. As your skills grow, so does the scope of your work and the size of your clients. You don’t climb the ladder through titles—you do it by delivering, and leveling up.
According to my digital assistant Vera, this connects to what learning experts refer to as holistic learning and experiential learning.
Depth-First Delegation
Now let’s compare that to how many accountants, in traditional companies, structure their apprenticeship models. (I speak from direct experience here—I’ve worked with more than one accounting agency, and the pattern is unmistakable.)
The senior accountant handles the high-value stuff: client strategy, investment advice, and—when gently nudged—creative tax reduction techniques. The juniors? They’re stuck with data entry, invoice matching, and balancing the books. Even with my modest business account, the only time I interacted with juniors was when something didn’t add up. All the meaningful conversations happened with the seniors.
And this isn’t unique to accounting. Doctors, lawyers, engineers—they all tend to follow the same pattern. Seniors own the vision, design, and stakeholder relations. Juniors handle the crap work. They have no control, no ownership—no matter how small the client or project. Their job is to carry the luggage and fetch the coffees. Rarely do they hear, “Here’s a small project. It’s all yours, start to finish. I’ll be here to guide you.”
That’s what I call depth-first delegation: the seniors stay on stage, no matter how big or small the spotlight. The juniors are just personal assistants.
Vera tells me this maps to hierarchical learning and sequential learning. But here’s the challenge: this model is being dismantled by AI.
AI Is Leveling Us Up
Today’s AI is still narrow, but it’s voracious. One specialized task after another is being consumed. Researching articles? No longer my job. Fact-checking and structure validation? Outsourced to my AI assistants. Depth-first delegation is precisely how we use AI today. We offload the tedious, repetitive stuff to machines so we can focus on the interesting, fulfilling parts of our work.
No wonder the younger generation finds itself disillusioned in the corporate landscape. If we treat interns and juniors like task bots, they’re going to get replaced by real task bots. Instead, we need to prepare junior-level employees to become generalists because that’s where their future lies: doing the whole job.
If we treat interns and juniors like task bots, they’re going to get replaced by real task bots.
This doesn’t mean apprenticeship is dead. Only the depth-first model is. We need a full reset—a redesign of career development across industries. That won’t be easy. But it’s the only way forward.
Take legal work, for example. Instead of having junior lawyers draft contracts (which AI can now handle), let them manage small client cases. They should use AI, just like their seniors, but they need to be responsible for the complete process—from first contact to the final invoice. Meanwhile, the senior lawyers should observe, guide, and intervene only when needed.
Same with senior accountants and developers. Stop dumping tedious tasks on juniors while the seniors hoard all the creative and strategic work. Flip the script. Give juniors full, small projects they can own. Let them drive from day one—with seniors selecting their projects, choosing the routes with minimal risk.
👉🏻 The junior dilemma is just one of many topics I discuss in my e-learning course. Sign up now for the self-paced version or the scheduled cohort. 👈🏻
Conclusion
People often ask me, “With AI taking over so much, how do I, as an agile coach or consultant, stay relevant?”
To me, the answer is obvious.
You help clients stop optimizing for short-term gains at the expense of long-term resilience. You coach them to think holistically and systemically. You guide them in transforming their apprenticeship models—from depth-first to breadth-first, from rigid hierarchies to immersive experiences.
I talked about exactly this at the PwC Workday Tomorrow event in Frankfurt. Because this is what I do. For over sixteen years, I’ve been visiting companies and conferences, from ten-person workshops to ten-thousand people events. I think I’ve earned the right to call myself a senior.
But I didn’t get here by carrying someone else’s luggage or fetching their pre-keynote coffees. I got here by continuously leveling up and always handling the entire project.
And yes—I still do my own book signings. 🖊️📚
The future of work isn’t just automation and fear-mongering. It’s about human-robot-agent collaboration—and those who master it will thrive. As the Maverick Mapmaker, I’m happy to be your guide. Subscribe to my newsletter on Substack!
