TODAY’S THOUGHTS ☠️

Hey friend 👋,

Something a little different today.

While I never bought into the “AI jobpocalypse” pushed by the mainstream media, I am very aware of the structural change happening in the entry-level of the workforce.

The next generation workforce is facing competition with AI to do the roles they would normally occupy to learn the expertise to eventually succeed me and you.

This is creating a problem.

Graduate schemes, apprenticeships and entry level roles are being reduced across many fields (except manual labour). While many companies believe AI is a cheaper and better option, we’re building several problems with a potential lost generation and a lack of a future talent pipeline.

This is not an AI problem.

It is in how we’re choosing to use and deploy AI.

So, today, we’re exploring if we’ve doomed the next-generation workforce.

Get your tea or beverage of choice ready 🍵.

We've got lots to discuss!

P.S. Your app might clip this edition due to size. If so, read the full edition in all its glory in your browser.

IN THIS DROP 📔

🙋‍♀️ Want to reach over 5,000 L&D pros? Become a Newsletter sponsor in 2026

THE BIG THOUGHT 👀

The kids are not alright.

I can’t shake an insight I saw from a report out of the Digital Education Council in partnership with Google from the states:

That translates to "if you’re old enough, wise enough and gathered the experience required to know what good looks like, then you’ll do well with AI”, but what if you don’t have that?

What if you’re under 25 and looking at a job market which is saying “We don’t want you because AI can do the simple tasks you can do”. That is a scary place to be for a young person. While I don’t believe the statement of “AI can do the task to the same standard” to be completely accurate (I mean, just look at the token costs right now for the most basic of tasks), I also can’t deny it can do a lot of low-level tasks very well.

I was 19 years old when I first walked through the doors of the fallen tech giant of Xerox in 2007.

I didn’t know much about anything. I had some academic education but had little to nothing on the education of life.

This first corporate job taught me a lot, mostly indirectly.

It wasn’t a course I took. It was everyday moments where I watched events, listened to people and read tons of documents that taught me some of the fundamentals of thinking, behaving, communicating and generally ‘how to get shit done’ at work.

There is still no degree that can teach you that.

Those 3 years with Xerox prepared me for the next level of the business world when I joined one of the world’s leading grocery retailers that operated across a global scale and employed 350,000 people. Xerox is where I learned the fundamentals, but my 6 years with Tesco group is where I got my business education.

Both of these experiences have shaped the capabilities I have today.

Not the technical ones, the human ones.

But AI wasn’t around in my time. I didn’t have to compete against a tool that never sleeps, never asks questions and isn’t looking to further its career. This is the reality young people face right now.

We know that those who do well with AI are those who have the experience to identify what good work is and render the judgement to spot when things aren’t going well. Yet, that pipeline is not going to last forever.

I’m about to turn 40. I’m in the sweet spot of “having the expertise” and “knowing how to leverage AI”, but I’m not going to be around forever. Others will need to take my place, and the only way to do that is if we invest in the youth of today so they can build the level of expertise I (and probably you) possess today.

I hope it’s obvious to see the perils of ignoring the next generation workforce in favour of AI doing all the low-level work.

But if not…let me spell it out for you.

The talent pipeline will break, the unemployment rate will get much worse and we will have generations unable to develop the core human skills to navigate life and support the global economy at large.

Yes, I’m doing my best Orwellian and Nostradamus infused impression here, yet I’m genuinely worried.

In my homeland of the UK, the numbers of youth unemployment craft a grim picture:

This, of course, is not all because of AI.

There are many micro and macro-economic factors too, yet AI is playing its part. Now AI (itself) is not doing this directly, it is in how we as humans at organisations are choosing to use AI that is influencing all this.

Look, I don’t have answers to any of this.

I’m doing the ‘captain obvious’ move of pointing out the fire and not offering much in the way of solutions.

The obvious solution is to not discard the youth of today because all of the events I mentioned earlier, will happen. Plus, more importantly, we’re creating a lost generation of souls with little purpose, life skills and experience to live their own lives and reach their full potential, and ambitions.

Be more human. Yes, it sounds simple but not easy in these times.

We have to invest in the next-generation workforce. While AI can do a lot of the low-level tasks, humans bring their own brand of uniqueness in judgement, context, and emotions. That is still needed in the workplace today.

And that’s where my fellow L&D friends can deliver impact.

Ok, folks.

The informal development architecture that organisations never explicitly funded: learning by doing, shadowing managers, growing through feedback loops, is being quickly removed.

Now, more than ever, we must find ways to build capability in the next generation of workers.

What do you think? Share that with me by hitting “reply” to this message.

→ If you’ve found this helpful, please consider sharing it wherever you hang out online, tag me in and share your thoughts.

👀 ICYMI (In case you missed it!)

VIDEO THOUGHTS 💾

A great way to learn an AI tool is to actually use the AI tool. Wild concept, I know.

Yet most AI "training" still defaults to throwing slides at us and hoping it sticks. So, I'm happy to see Anthropic building their products into learning experiences for customers.

Is it flawless? Nope.

But this is how we scale into that maybe, could be, one day future of a course less experience. Your LMS is not going to disappear tomorrow, find the happy balance and build from this.

Enjoy 😊.

PS… If you’re enjoying the newsletter, will you take 4 seconds to forward this edition to a friend? It goes a long way in helping me grow the newsletter (and cut through our industry BS with actionable insights).

And one more thing, I’d love your input on how to make the newsletter even more useful for you!

So please leave a comment with:

I read & reply to every single one of them!

Here’s four ways I can help: