By Headland Intern – Bryn Mollet
For industries across the globe, AI is changing the way people work. Communications is no different. But for graduates hoping to enter this industry, that change may cast some doubt over an already uncertain job market. In May this year, The Times reported that graduate vacancies had fallen by a third, with economic uncertainty and AI both to blame. So what does AI mean for someone entering communications now?
A few months into agency life at Headland, I have found the relationship between AI and the graduate to be more complicated than a simple story of replacement. Instead, AI appears to be changing what the junior role involves, specifically how time is allocated and what skills are developed and when.
AI is useful for many of the more labour-intensive tasks that tend to be completed at junior levels. It can sift through large amounts of information, such as media coverage logs, returning raw statistics, common themes, and chronological patterns, offering a bird’s-eye view that would take far longer to piece together by hand. As a first pass, it can pull out notable data points so that attention can go where it’s needed most, allowing closer reading of sentiment and consideration of the client’s context. For other simple tasks, such as proofreading, it is also excellent, catching the double-spaces that even the more vigilant human-proofers may miss, and formatting spreadsheets or decks quicker than ever.
Yet, there are limits to what can be sensibly delegated to AI. It can be a useful aid in drafting and analysis, but its outputs still need to be tested against current information, client context, and the judgement of the person using it. This is particularly important for client facing work, where tone, nuance and understanding of the client’s objectives matter more than the words themselves. AI can support that process, but it cannot replace the responsibility of the consultant to understand, interrogate, and stand behind the final product.
More broadly, much of communications depends on distinctly human skills. Our work is built on understanding clients, anticipating their needs and pressures, managing relationships and applying judgement to complex situations. The same is true of creativity: the strongest strategic thinking often comes from interpreting events, making unexpected connections and bringing together different perspectives. In my experience so far, that process of challenge and collaboration is difficult to separate from the people involved.
So, while AI can take some of the most time-consuming tasks off a graduate’s plate. In principle, creates more space for deeper research, greater proactivity and earlier exposure to the kinds of thinking that may once have come later in a career. That can mean more time spent understanding client relationships, business pressures, how reputation is built and how strategic advice is developed.
There is a trade-off, however. Some of the more repetitive work graduates do early in their careers is also how they learn. Reading widely, synthesising large volumes of information, and spotting patterns are all crucial foundations for developing judgement. The key is to use AI to accelerate learning rather than bypass it.
That judgement extends to AI itself. Using it well means more than knowing how to operate particular tools, it means developing an instinct for where AI can add value, how to interrogate its output and when human judgement is needed instead. Developing an AI ‘sixth sense’ is becoming a valuable skill in its own right.
As with all technology, this will continue to evolve. As AI becomes more capable and more embedded in day-to-day workflows, the graduate role will evolve with it. For now, the opportunity is to develop the judgement, curiosity, creativity and client understanding that turn a graduate into a consultant. In that regard, AI is not rendering the junior role obsolete so much as reshaping how people learn the trade, and perhaps making that learning curve more interesting in the process.
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