If you’re trying to get your first job in advertising right now, you’ve probably heard some version of the same line: AI ate the juniors.
It’s a tidy explanation. The work that used to train beginners — resizing banners, writing fifty headline options, mocking up comps — is exactly the work generative tools do fastest. So the entry-level jobs went away, and the people who would have filled them are left knocking on a door with nobody behind it.
There’s real data behind that story. There’s also more to it than the headline, and the parts the headline leaves out are the parts that tell a young creative what to do.
What the numbers actually say
Some of the most closely watched work on this comes from Stanford’s Digital Economy Lab. In August 2026, Erik Brynjolfsson, Bharat Chandar and Ruyu Chen updated their “Canaries in the Coal Mine” study, which uses ADP payroll data to track who is getting hired where.
As of June 2026, employment for workers aged 22 to 25 in the occupations most exposed to AI was about 19% below where it would have been had it kept pace with similar young workers in less-exposed jobs. A year earlier, that gap was 15%. Between November 2022 and June 2026, employment for young workers in the two most exposed groups fell about 11%. In the three least exposed groups, it grew about 10%.
The researchers found no comparable gap for experienced workers. The shift came mostly through fewer hires rather than layoffs. And the declines were concentrated in jobs where AI tends to automate tasks. Where AI complements the work instead, employment held steady or rose.
The paper draws another distinction. Young workers lost ground in occupations built on codified knowledge, the kind that can be written down in a manual. Experienced workers in occupations built on tacit knowledge, the kind learned by doing and watching, gained ground. The gaps between more- and less-exposed young workers also narrowed once education was taken into account.
The authors are also careful to call their findings descriptive, not causal. They write that they can’t yet definitively pin the divergence on generative AI, and some of the trends started before the tools were widespread.
Meanwhile, the broader graduate market is less grim than the mood suggests. The National Association of Colleges and Employers reported in April 2026 that employers expected to hire 5.6% more new graduates from the class of 2026 than the year before, a reversal from a fall projection of a 2.4% decline. NACE chief executive Shawn VanDerziel described it as a turn after “two years of lackluster job markets.” More than a third of responding employers planned to add hires, up from a quarter the previous fall. Employers with more than 5,000 staff projected an 8.7% increase, and a related NACE study found employers expecting to take on about 4% more summer interns.
The door is narrower for the most automatable kind of entry-level work. It is not closed. And the jobs that are holding up are the ones where AI works alongside people rather than doing their tasks for them.
The case against giving up on juniors
In October 2026, Cat How, chief executive of the brand agency HOW+HOW and a D&AD global ambassador, published an open letter to emerging creatives through D&AD that pushes back on the “AI ate the juniors” story. She argues that expectation, not technology, is what’s stopping employers from opening junior roles, and that much of the recent job loss at creative agencies traces back to client budget cuts.
She also points out something the doom narrative misses. Young creatives arrive fluent in tools that didn’t exist when most senior people trained. At HOW+HOW, junior staff teaches AI practice to senior staff every eight to ten weeks. That isn’t charity. It’s a skills transfer running in the opposite direction from the usual org chart.
Her line for the industry is blunt: “An industry that stops making new creatives stops making anything at all in about a decade.” To the juniors themselves, her advice is to stop asking how to get into a closed industry and start asking what they’re actually building, and who they want to build it with. “Vague ambition creates anxiety,” she writes. “Shaped ambition creates clarity.”
Her advice to leaders is practical. Hire at least one junior, pay them properly and bring them into decisions. If you can’t hire, mentor: set briefs, review portfolios at D&AD’s New Blood, answer messages.
What the people hiring actually want
Creative Boom asked a range of studio founders and creative directors in May 2026, and their answers overlapped more than they differed. Almost none of them led with polish.
Matt Redway, senior creative director at PlayStation, asked a simple question of junior portfolios: “Can you explain your thinking behind the work?” Daniel Poll, founder of Noramble, said it’s “the understanding of the big idea and the ‘why’ behind that work that separates juniors.”
Several valued originality over finish. Wolff Olins senior creative director James McNaught said the work “does have to be unexpected and meaningful.” Tom Muller of helloMuller wanted “great ideas and cool design” over “technical perfection.”
Others put attitude ahead of skill entirely. Edward Dalton, co-founder of HelloYes, said: “attitude will outperform raw talent in the long run.” Jacques Rossouw of Voicebox Creative put it more simply: “It’s easier to teach someone a skill than it is to teach someone to be a good person.”
And small things still count. Dalton flagged interview calls with cameras off and no questions as a red flag. Alex Dixon, founder of Dacre, remembered a third-year student who stood out by picking up the phone and calling the agency directly.
Explaining your thinking, having an idea nobody expected, and showing up with energy have one thing in common. A tool can’t do any of them for you. They belong to the kind of work the Stanford data suggests is holding up.
Advice from people who’ve hired for decades
Mark Fitzloff, who spent two decades at one of the world’s best-known independent agencies before founding his own, has talked about this directly. In an episode of The Last Advertising Podcast, he covered his advice for breaking into advertising, the value of networking and what makes a portfolio stand out.
The networking point is easy to dismiss as old-fashioned. It shouldn’t be. Relationships are tacit knowledge of the most practical kind, and the Stanford researchers found experienced workers in tacit-knowledge occupations gaining ground. Juniors who build relationships early are building something that compounds.
Networking also never stops being part of the job. Decades in, his own personal site still says he is “interested in meeting new people to work with” and invites people to get in touch. If the people at the top of the business are still building their networks, there’s no reason to wait until you have a title to start building yours.
What to do if you’re starting out
Show your thinking along with the output: Every piece in your portfolio should come with the idea behind it in a sentence or two. If a recruiter can’t tell why you made something, they’ll assume a tool did.
Aim for the complementary work: The Stanford data says automatable tasks are where hiring fell. Lean toward the parts of the job that need taste, judgment, and relationships: concepting, presenting, working with clients, editing other people’s ideas.
Use the tools, and say so: Cat How’s point cuts in your favor. Fluency with AI is a skill many senior people don’t have yet. Show how you use it to get to better ideas faster, not to replace having them.
Make contact like a person: Call, write, ask for twenty minutes. Turn your camera on. Ask questions. The bar for standing out is lower than it looks.
Use the doors the industry already leaves open: Portfolio reviews, set briefs and student programs like D&AD’s New Blood exist to put new talent in front of the people who hire. Cat How names them specifically as the places she tells leaders to show up. Be there when they do.
Be more than your portfolio: Cafeteria co-founder Chris Woodhams told Creative Boom he values adaptability and initiative over “flair” in someone who’s “one-dimensional.” The things you care about outside advertising are where your unexpected ideas will come from.
The entry-level ladder has fewer rungs at the bottom than it used to. The rungs that remain are built for people who can think out loud, make something nobody asked for, and pick up the phone. That was always the job. It’s just easier to see now.
