Last night I attended my first meeting of the MK AI Users Group — I’d been a member for a while but finally made it along. It was hosted by Aiimi at their offices, which genuinely live up to their reputation as one of the best working environments in Milton Keynes.
Stephanie kicked things off with a round of one-minute member talks — a brilliant format for picking up practical, real-world AI use cases fast. There followed a fascinating talk on the women of Bletchley Park (embarrassingly, I’ve never visited, despite it being on my doorstep and having a friend on the board). A panel of AI innovators rounded out the evening, and the conversation turned — as it inevitably does — to the future of work.
I’m firmly in the optimist camp. But a few things stuck with me:
It’s genuinely tough out there for young people trying to find work right now.
Many companies are still falling behind on AI adoption.
And the conversation kept returning to three things: knowledge, skills, and experience.
The one thing AI can’t give you
AI is a great leveller when it comes to knowledge. Anyone with the will and curiosity can now build deep knowledge in almost any domain — quickly. AI can accelerate skills too: it teaches, reviews, critiques, and adapts to the learner.
But experience? That’s different. Experience — the hard-won judgment that comes from doing things, getting things wrong, and understanding context — is still deeply human. And it turns out that experience is precisely what makes AI most useful. You need it to ask the right questions, interpret the outputs, and know when not to trust it.
Enter the agent maestro
I picked up a new term last night: agent maestro. Someone embedded in your business who hunts out processes that could be improved, understands them properly, and then applies AI to help. Not a technical role — more operational, more customer-focused. A translator between the messy reality of how things actually work and the potential of AI to improve them.
Which got me thinking: what if the best person for this role is your youngest hire?
Young people are digitally native. They adopt new tools instinctively. They have energy, curiosity, and — crucially — they haven’t yet been conditioned by “that’s how we’ve always done it” or “we tried that once and it didn’t work.” They’ll see your business as it actually is, not as it used to be.
Yes, they’ll be short on experience — but that’s the point. Surround them with your experienced people. Let the knowledge flow both ways. They gain the context and judgment they need. Your team gains a fresh pair of eyes and someone who’ll actually use the tools.
I’ve seen it work
In my last year at Franchise Brands, I hired a junior who’d left university early — it just wasn’t for him. He had no intention of working in an office. I brought him in over the summer to help with some admin, half expecting it to be temporary.
He loved it. The team loved him. Within a year he was indispensable.
The lesson? Don’t wait for the perfect candidate. Find someone hungry, curious, and unencumbered — and invest in them. In the age of AI, that combination might be the most valuable thing in your business.
Have you hired a junior into an AI-focused role? I’d love to hear how it went. And if you’re in Milton Keynes and interested in AI — come along to the MK AI Users Group. Well worth your evening.
Colin Rees is the founder of Xpera, where we help businesses cut through the technology noise and find practical, measurable value. If you would like to talk about where AI can make a genuine difference in your operation, get in touch.