Azernews.Az

By Alimat Aliyeva

Companies attempting to replace young professionals with artificial intelligence (AI) risk facing a serious talent shortage in the coming years, AzerNEWS reports.

"The main risk for companies currently cutting back on hiring juniors in the hope of replacing them with AI is a future staff starvation," said Shulzhenko. "If you don’t train young professionals today, tomorrow there will be no one to become the mid-level employees on whom any business relies. The organizational pyramid is built in such a way that experienced personnel do not appear out of nowhere—they grow from those who start at entry-level positions. A team made up solely of senior staff becomes too expensive, less flexible, and significantly more costly if you try to poach ready-made specialists from competitors instead of developing your own."

Shulzhenko notes that AI primarily takes over routine, formulaic tasks that were previously assigned to beginners. However, she emphasizes that this shift also opens new opportunities for juniors. Companies increasingly need specialists who can work alongside AI: monitoring its results, identifying errors, and retraining models for specific tasks.

"The role of a junior employee is evolving from a simple task executor to an AI dispatcher and controller, which requires more advanced skills," she explained. Tasks requiring human judgment—critical thinking, contextual understanding, creativity—are becoming even more valuable.

Some forward-thinking companies are already creating AI mentorship programs, where juniors work closely with AI systems while being guided by seniors. This hybrid approach not only develops new skill sets but also ensures that the next generation of professionals grows alongside the technology, rather than being replaced by it.