IBM will bring your entry-level talent into the age of artificial intelligence

While the AI ​​industry touts that AI will replace entry-level jobs, not every company is cutting back on hiring for these jobs. In the case of IBM, everything is in order.

Hardware giant IBM plans to triple US employment in 2026, according to a report Reports from Bloomberg. Nickel Lamoureux, chief human resources officer at IBM, announced the initiative at the Leadership with AI Summit on Tuesday.

“And yes, we have been told that AI can do all these jobs,” Lamoureux said.

She explained that these jobs will look different from the entry-level jobs that IBM used to offer. According to LaMoreaux, it changed the descriptions of these entry-level jobs so that they were less focused on areas that AI can actually automate — such as programming — and more focused on people-oriented areas such as customer dealing.

This strategy makes sense. Even if an organization like IBM doesn’t necessarily need as much entry-level talent as it once did, promoting less experienced workers helps ensure those employees have the skills needed for higher-level roles in the future.

IBM has not specified how many people it will employ in this initiative. TechCrunch has reached out to IBM for more information about hiring plans.

This year could be a pivotal year in terms of what the impact of AI on the recruitment market will look like. An MIT study in 2025 estimated that 11.7% of jobs are likely to already be automated by AI. A TechCrunch survey It found that many investors believe that 2026 will begin to show the potential impact of AI on the labor market – although they were not asked about employment specifically.