AI Bots Handle Junior Work At Anthropic While Meeting Hours Rise

The fast growth of smart software is changing who gets hired at top technology companies. At Anthropic, the number of junior technical workers has fallen sharply as automated tools take over basic tasks. The engineering team is still growing, but its workers are older on average and taking on more management jobs. As a result, employees now spend much more of their workday in meetings.

Bots do basic coding work, so fewer junior workers are hired

From early 2025 to the middle of 2026, junior workers made up a smaller share of the technical team, falling from 21 percent to just 14 percent. The drop was even bigger among new entry-level hires, whose share fell from 27 percent to 9 percent.

The company found that artificial intelligence is taking over much of the work usually done by entry-level employees. Because bots handle much of the work, human engineers can get things done much faster. The number of code changes submitted by each engineer grew to more than five times its earlier level during this period. The amount of work completed on data queries and legal contracts also increased greatly.

With productivity rising so much, the company no longer needs to hire as many junior coders to reach its revenue goals.

Experienced workers become managers and spend more time in meetings

Even though the company is hiring fewer junior workers, its technical team is still growing. Instead of writing simple code, these workers are moving into more senior jobs. They now manage and oversee different AI programs.

As people spend more time planning and making decisions, they also need to talk to one another more often. The company found that the typical amount of time workers spend in meetings rose by 20 percent, measured by the median.

Some tasks still need a real person. Sales calls and job interviews are still handled by humans. In fact, human involvement is now a point that slows work down. The company noted that Claude spends about 80 percent of the time it is active simply waiting for a human to give it an instruction.

In the future, workplaces will likely value skills such as good judgment and independent thinking more than basic technical skills. What is happening at this company offers an early look at how smart tools might change job markets around the world.