Some new graduates are being hired not to learn a trade from the bottom of a pyramid but to manage fleets of AI agents, the BBC reported. Lotte Underwood, 25, joined the London public-relations agency Fight or Flight last November as an "AI associate" after a marketing degree and a master's. She is part of a dedicated AI team that has built about 30 agents for industry research, client reporting, interview preparation, clearer briefs, and image generation. A large part of her job is checking those outputs, taking them to colleagues who deal with clients and the media, and monitoring how clients appear in answers from ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and other tools. "A huge part is being in client meetings and calls to work out what is actually going to be most helpful from these agents," she said.
Dillan Patel, 24, a business-management graduate in Coventry, started as an intern at the engineering software firm Stride 18 months ago, building an internal chatbot to capture a retiring senior colleague's knowledge. He is now an AI automation analyst, writing agents for individual teams and looking for repetitive work the company could automate. ArvatoConnect, an outsourced contact-centre firm, has paused its usual graduate intake this year; chief executive Debra Maxwell said she plans to resume it next year with a bigger focus on "AI-disruptor type roles" that challenge the business to apply the technology more broadly, rather than filling administrative posts. PwC's 2026 AI Jobs Barometer, which analysed 2.4 million U.S. entry-level jobs, found that the roles most influenced by AI are now seven times more likely to require traditionally senior skills such as motivational leadership, strategic decision-making, and team building. Those higher-expectation entry-level jobs have grown 35% since 2019, PwC said, while other entry-level roles shrank 10%.
Cian Clinton, 23, who joined the consultancy Valliance last September, said he uses about 10 AI agents a day and is taking on work that would usually have taken four or five years to reach. "AI is killing the 'pyramid' approach," he said, with progression based more on critical thinking than on a knowledge bank. The open question is whether those graduates are learning the profession itself. Underwood said she still wants traditional PR skills, including pitching to the media, which she has not yet done. Simon Pratt, chief operating officer at Portman Finance Group, said his firm's two-year programme is centred on "learning the trade" — rotating across four areas, drafting credit papers, and running transactions. Claire Reid, PwC UK's chief technology and innovation officer, said every graduate job will require a baseline of AI literacy, but that "AI skills on their own are not going to help you in your career" without sector knowledge of what a client actually wants.
The verified picture is a split labour market for juniors, not a simple story that AI has either killed graduate jobs or made them better. Some employers are designing roles around agents; others are deliberately keeping the apprenticeship model.