Anthropic Advertises €145,000 Executive Assistant Role in London

Two outlets have covered the same job listing. Anthropic is looking for an executive assistant in London and is offering a salary of €145,000.

According to Fast Company^[1], that comes to about $190,000. The listing has been removed from the company's website, but the publication kept a copy. City AM^[2] also picked up the story and set it against the race to build AI agents.

What Anthropic's job listing asks for

The listing describes an administrative partner for senior sales and marketing leaders.

The duties are the standard ones for the role:

• Calendar: scheduling and rescheduling meetings.
• Travel: handling all logistics.
• Email: managing the executive's inbox and correspondence.
• Expenses: preparing and submitting expense reports.
• Office: other support tasks.

The qualities it asks for are more revealing. The listing wants someone with "outstanding attention to detail" and "strong relationship-building skills".

It also asks for "the ability to anticipate needs across teams". The work has to stay "responsive, error-free".

An agent's tasks, a human's qualities

Social media users quoted by Fast Company were quick to spot the irony. One of the leading AI agent companies is hiring a person for a job that an agent could, in theory, do much of. As one user put it: "Somebody should really build some sort of tech tool that can handle this stuff autonomously".

The joke is aimed at the listing's first list.

The second list sits on a different level. Building relationships takes time and a memory for people. Anticipating a need means reading several teams at once and knowing who is waiting on what from whom.

Two lists with little overlap

The listing therefore gives two descriptions of the same role. The first sets out duties that AI tools can already partly handle. The second does more to explain the salary on offer.

The value of this role lies in trust and in coordinating people.

An executive hands over their calendar to someone who knows their priorities. Teams respond to a nudge from someone who has built a relationship with them.

Seen this way, the AI skills gap runs the other way. Many organizations measure how well their people can use AI. This listing puts relationships and judgment first.

How to rethink support roles

The listing gives leaders a simple framework to apply to their own roles.

1. Split each role into two columns: repeatable tasks and relationship qualities.
2. Assign the first column to AI tools, with a named person accountable for them.
3. Build the second column into performance reviews and training plans.
4. Benchmark the role's pay against the second column.

Fast Company asked Anthropic for comment. The article notes the request and reports no response.

The question for people leaders

Any CHRO can run a quick test on their open job listings. Count how many lines describe tasks and how many describe trust and coordination.

The question for the next leadership meeting concerns the roles that hold teams together. Which roles are they, who trains the people in them, and how are they paid?