Developing professional judgement in the AI age.
A white paper by Alex Young, written as part of the Weekend MBA at Imperial College Business School. Four connected findings are taking shape, alongside a proposed framework for leaders. The full paper is planned for November 2026.
Findings taking shape
How are mid-market service firms redesigning junior development to preserve expertise and judgement formation in the AI age?
Generative AI is reshaping how service firms operate - drafting documents, summarising research, producing first-pass client deliverables. Most attention has gone to productivity. Far less has gone to what AI means for how expertise and judgement actually develop inside firms.
Junior work has historically done two things at once: produced client output and developed the judgement and contextual understanding required for senior roles. When AI completes the task, what happens to the developmental work that used to come with it?
The risk is a talent pipeline problem - a generation of technically capable but judgement-thin mid-seniors who struggle with the advisory, client-facing work senior roles demand. For mid-market firms, without enterprise-scale learning infrastructure to fall back on, the risk is particularly acute.
UK mid-market service firms. Two sectors.
UK-headquartered firms selling expertise, advice or relationship-led services. Roughly 50–500 FTE or £10m–£100m revenue.
Management consulting and professional advisory firms; and marketing, creative and communications agencies.
Semi-structured interviews with firm leaders, people and talent leaders, senior practitioners and expert perspectives. Qualitative thematic analysis, with quotations checked against source material.
Early findings.
Four connected findings from the interviews so far. Contributors and firms remain anonymous. These are practitioner accounts, not proof of what happens in every firm.
The loss is repetition, not tasks
AI can remove the work that gave juniors a feel for what good looks like.
Repeated exposure helps people spot patterns, recognise differences and learn from mistakes. The answer isn't to keep every old task - it's to replace the learning that disappears when useful practice is automated. This isn't inevitable: some firms report no clear loss of junior exposure.
Output has come apart from understanding
A polished answer no longer tells you what someone actually understands.
AI can produce convincing work before the person can explain, defend or adapt it. Managers need to ask what someone tried, what they rejected and what would change their mind - not just review the finished document.
Policies without development policies
Firms have clearer rules for using AI than for learning alongside it.
Rules on data, confidentiality and approved tools are taking shape. What replaces the apprenticeship is less settled. Leaders are experimenting with independent first attempts, AI as a critic, closer client exposure and increasing responsibility - not one established model.
The two constraints
Time saved isn't automatically time spent developing people.
Two pressures keep coming up: billable work and coaching capacity. Freed-up hours can become more client work, while senior people need both the time and the ability to coach. Development has to be planned and resourced, not squeezed into whatever is left.
What's been said.
“Some of the boring junior work is incredibly valuable.”
“You can give someone a junior-level task and AI can make them look incredibly capable.”
“We have a phrase internally: proximity is development.”
“If I save my junior ten hours a week but use those ten hours to give them ten more tasks, I've increased productivity. I haven't developed them.”
Month by month.
Six months from question to published paper. Here's the path - and where I am on it right now.
- Phase 01May 2026Setting the question
Sharpen the research question, map the existing literature, design the interview guide and clear ethics. The unglamorous bit that makes everything else possible.
- Phase 02June 2026Finding the rooms
Confirm the sample - founders, MDs, people leaders and senior practitioners across consulting and creative agencies - and start the first interviews.
- Phase 03Jul-Aug 2026Listening hard
Run the bulk of the interviews. Begin coding and thematic analysis. Watch the first patterns - and the surprises - emerge from the transcripts.
- Phase 04Sep 2026Themes emerging
Fieldwork under way. Early signals are landing around where AI is removing junior exposure, what firms are doing in response and how judgement itself is being redefined.
- Phase 05Oct 2026Drafting
Bring the four findings together, develop the Development-First Sequence and draft the paper. Test the argument against the interview evidence and invite feedback.
- Phase 06Nov 2026Publishing
Edit, tighten, proofread - and ship. Public white paper out into the world, with a launch event and follow-up writing to come.
A practical framework for leaders.
The proposed Development-First Sequence turns the findings into four decisions for leaders. It is grounded in interview accounts, but has not been tested as an intervention.
- MOVE 01
Triage by what the task builds
Before automating, ask what capability the task develops. Keep or redesign the learning, not the busywork.
- MOVE 02
Sequence AI by seniority
Let juniors form a view first, then use AI to challenge or extend it. Match the support to their experience.
- MOVE 03
Supervise thinking, not output
Ask why they reached the recommendation, what they rejected and what would change their mind.
- MOVE 04
Buy exposure deliberately
Make room for client meetings, observation and debriefs, then increase what juniors are responsible for.
The condition: protect senior time.
All four moves depend on experienced people having time to explain, question and debrief. If every hour saved becomes more delivery, the learning still loses out.
This research reflects leaders' and practitioners' perspectives, not juniors' own experiences. It does not establish that AI is reducing junior hiring, or that the proposed approach improves outcomes. Research with juniors and longer-term testing are still needed.