Sam Altman Compares AI Agents to Junior Employees in Workforce

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has likened the use of AI agents in companies to managing a team of junior employees. Speaking at the Snowflake Summit 2025, Altman noted that professionals now assign tasks to AI agents, review their output, and provide feedback—mirroring how they interact with junior staff.

"You hear people that talk about their job now is to assign work to a bunch of [AI] agents, look at the quality, figure out how it fits together, give feedback," Altman said, as reported by Business Insider. "It sounds a lot like how they work with a team of still relatively junior employees."

AI's Impact on Entry-Level Jobs

A recent report from venture capital firm SignalFire revealed a 25% decline in entry-level hires at Meta, Microsoft, and Google from 2023 to 2024. SignalFire's head of research, Asher Bantock, attributed this trend to AI automating routine tasks traditionally handled by junior employees.

Consulting giant McKinsey is already using AI for tasks like creating PowerPoint presentations and drafting proposals—work typically assigned to junior staff. The firm warned in 2024 that AI could displace up to 375 million jobs by 2030.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Bold Predictions from Industry Leaders

Dario Amodei, CEO of the $61.5 billion AI company Anthropic, told Axios that AI could eliminate half of all entry-level white-collar jobs within 1-5 years, potentially driving unemployment as high as 20%.