AI is driving a jobs boom, but "newbies" are left behind

As Corporate America races to fill artificial intelligence jobs, people trying to take their first steps in the industry are falling behind.

New research, shared exclusively with CNN, reveals that job opportunities in the economy's hottest sector are often reserved for those with extensive experience, not beginners.

The vast majority - 71% - of AI-related jobs posted on LinkedIn by S&P 500 companies, such as those for data analysts or machine learning engineers, are for senior-level positions, according to the AI-Driven Enterprise (AIDE) Institute, a research organization that tracks how companies are implementing the technology.

Only 13% of these AI-related vacancies are for junior positions, while 16% are considered mid-level, according to researchers, after analyzing more than 161,000 vacancies posted in January by large corporations.

The results highlight the challenge facing young Americans seeking employment in the burgeoning AI sector. Large companies wage bidding wars to win the same tight pool of experienced talent, raising questions about how they can attract the next generation of professionals.

Young job seekers are already facing difficulties in this job market, given concerns about the replacement of human workers by AI. Over the past year, companies have reduced their headcount and integrated AI more deeply into their operations.

"The anxiety has been about AI replacing humans. What the data really shows is an increasingly tight job market, where the opportunity in AI is real but reserved for those already at the top," said Paul Cheek, CEO of the AIDE Institute and senior professor at MIT, in the report. "The classic entry path into a high-growth field is narrow."

"Built for experts"
Cheek explained that companies want senior-level talent to help them navigate the accelerating AI boom.

"Most of this is very new and changing quickly. They want people who will analyze the landscape based on experience," he said.

AIDE Institute researchers analyzed 161,645 job openings advertised on LinkedIn by S&P 500 companies and ranked them by relevance to AI and seniority level.

Roles were considered AI-related if they contained one of 50 predefined job titles, including data analyst, machine learning scientist, AI engineer, head of AI, or VP of AI, or if the job description contained one of 125 AI-related terms.

A total of 8,140 AI-related job openings were found, which were "predominantly senior, leaving few opportunities for beginners."

"The AI hiring boom is real - but it was built for experts," the AIDE report concluded.

However, there is a risk that Corporate America's focus on experience is shortsighted. If young talent chooses to seek work elsewhere, such as at fast-growing AI startups trying to capture market share, this could pose long-term threats to more established corporations.

"CEOs need to prioritize AI talent at all levels of the organization," said Cheek.

"They need to think not just about senior-level people, but also about mid- and junior-level roles that are being prepared for the future."

Young employment 'stagnant'
The difficulty of breaking into the AI industry reflects the woes of younger workers across the economy.

The unemployment rate among recent college graduates was 5.6% in March, well above the overall unemployment rate of 4.2% that month, according to the most recent New York Fed survey.

The unemployment rate among recent university graduates and the general workforce has widened in recent years, compared to the period immediately before and after Covid-19, when the two were closely linked.

A recent Stanford University study found that employment of younger workers has been "stagnant" since late 2022, when OpenAI's launch of ChatGPT paved the way for the AI gold rush we are experiencing today.

In occupations most exposed to AI, young workers experienced a 6% drop in employment between the end of 2022 and September 2025, compared to a 6% to 9% increase for older workers.

The Stanford researchers said the results suggest that the contraction in employment in AI-exposed roles is driving younger workers' broader difficulties in getting jobs.

Entry-level jobs are being "structurally removed"

All of this is fueling workers' anxiety about the advancement of AI.

"Junior level isn't just shrinking - it's being removed structurally," said Hiro, a pseudonym used by a mid-level service industry professional who writes about the future of work on Medium and who agreed to speak anonymously to CNN.

Hiro said the problem is that the high-frequency, low-risk work that used to go to junior people - first drafts of documents, routine processing - is exactly the kind of work that is best suited to AI.

As junior tasks are increasingly delegated to AI, "what remains is senior oversight of AI-generated results. This means that you now need experience to get in - but the traditional path to gaining that experience no longer exists," said Hiro.

Acquiring experience outside of work can mean taking training courses aimed at professional qualifications.

Hiro said he paid $4,000 for training - only to discover that the new skills he acquired had a shelf life of eight months before they were rendered obsolete by the next generation of AI models.

""Continue qualifying" stops being career advice and becomes a treadmill that demands you to continue on it", he said.

The future of work
Nela Richardson, chief economist at payroll giant ADP, told CNN that AI isn't just changing the number of jobs created and destroyed - it's reshaping workers' jobs and job responsibilities.

ADP is working with the Stanford Digital Economy Lab to disaggregate job responsibilities and use payroll data to assign an economic value to specific tasks.

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These findings, which are expected to be made public, could help employers transition employees to higher-value jobs and help job seekers determine education and training paths, Richardson said.

The hope is that these efforts can help ease anxiety about AI's impact on entry-level workers.

"The employer's job is not to throw away these young people's career ladder just because the first rung is missing," Richardson said. "The task at hand is to give young people a boost to that second rung, of more complex, higher-value tasks and responsibilities that companies are hiring for... The entry point has simply shifted upwards."

CNN's Alicia Wallace and David Goldman contributed to this report

Source: CNN