The False Expertise Trap: How To Keep Your Team Thinking In The AI Era

InnovationThe False Expertise Trap: How To Keep Your Team Thinking In The AI EraByIllia Smoliienko,Forbes Councils Member.for Forbes Technology CouncilCOUNCIL POSTExpertise from Forbes Councils members, operated under license. Opinions expressed are those of the author. | Membership (fee-based)May 15, 2026, 07:45am EDTIllia Smoliienko, Chief Software Officer, Waites. gettyIn 2024, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said that AI was already generating more than 25% of the code for Google's products, with engineers reviewing and directing the output. In August 2025, Harvard researchers found that companies actively integrating AI into their workflows see junior headcount drop by roughly 9% compared with firms that don't. They simply stop opening the positions.On the surface, this looks rational. Why invest in roles that don't pay off right away and need a long runway of training, when AI can take on part of the work? But these are the roles where expertise takes shape and where people learn to read context and make decisions. If they disappear, who will be running the teams that are automating so efficiently today, 10 years from now?In this article, I want to dig into exactly how AI automation affects the leadership pipeline.You can't generate experience.An entry-level developer used to do low-stakes grunt work: small bugs, minor tweaks to functionality, simple tests and documentation. AI handles much of that now, and the work available to juniors has shrunk accordingly.The logical result is a shrinking of entry-level roles—the positions whose responsibilities are the first to get automated. In the U.S., entry-level job postings are down 35%. According to venture firm SignalFire, new-graduate hiring at the 15 largest tech companies by market cap has fallen by more than 50% since 2019. Before the pandemic, graduates made up about 15% of total hires. Today it's 7%.Under pressure to show productivity gains, tech teams don't really have a choice. Inves...