How AI is Changing Early Careers: A View from Entry-Level Workers6Contributors Oliver Humphries, Workforce Manager, PwC; Seconded to the World Economic Forum Till Leopold, Head of Work, Wages and Job Creation, World Economic Forum Pete Brown, Global Workforce Lead, PwCThe Forum is grateful to Steffica Warwick for leading the Global Dialogue and its background research.Have a case study to share? This briefing is part of a broader effort by the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the New Economy and Society, in collaboration with PwC, exploring how AI is reshaping early careers and how employers, educators and policymakers can respond. Organizations undertaking innovative work in this area are invited to contact the authors to share insights that may inform future research. What does this mean for employers, educators and policymakers? The findings in this briefing highlight a workforce open to embracing change but uncertain about how to navigate it. This raises multiple questions for employers, educators and policymakers as they consider how to prepare the next generation of talent for an AI-enabled economy. Addressing these questions will be key to future talent readiness across industries as well as to ensuring that entry-level work continues to support inclusion, growth and opportunity across the workforce. For employers – How can communication from business leadership better align expectations between workers and management about how AI will af fect entry-level jobs? – Ar e managers equipped to support early-career workers through change, especially in hybrid and AI-enabled environments?For educators – How can curricula anticipate the skills most at risk of obsolescence and prioritize those that will endur e and increase in demand? – What models of partnership with business can deliver better education-to-employment transitions and ensur e that education and training reflect how AI is actually being used at work? – As AI r eshapes early-career work, how should professional and regulatory bodies in sectors such as medicine, law and accountancy adapt their qualification standards? For policymakers – What policies can ensur e that workforce AI deployment strengthens opportunity, rather than reducing pathways into secure employment?

Briefing AI and Entry-Level Jobs January 2026