What Needs to Change to Help AI-Empowered Employees Build Real Expertise?

Just because junior employees using AI produce better deliverables does not mean their ability to independently take charge of future tasks grows at the same speed. Organizations must go beyond simply restricting AI use or extending training hours to decide together which tasks will replace the practical experience lost to automation and who will bear that time cost. In particular, companies that intend to reduce drafting tasks and leave reviews and judgments to employees need to redesign the pathways through which those judgment skills are acquired. The Gap Between Improved Deliverables and Grown Individuals Research published in September 2026 by David Autor and co-researchers vividly illustrates this gap. In a pre-registered randomized experiment involving 133 patent attorneys across 11 U.S. intellectual property law firms, the researchers assigned access to AI-writing tools and monit…