Michigan already operates one of the nation’s largest earn-while-you-learn systems. Now the question is whether that model can be expanded to train workers who will install, operate and repair the robots, automation systems and artificial intelligence transforming manufacturing.
ANN ARBOR – Michigan spent generations teaching workers to become electricians, tool-and-die makers, machinists, millwrights and other highly skilled tradespeople without requiring four-year college degrees.
The formula was simple: earn while you learn.
Apprentices worked alongside experienced tradespeople, received classroom instruction and gradually mastered increasingly sophisticated skills while collecting a paycheck.
Artificial intelligence could make that old Michigan workforce model relevant all over again.
This time, apprentices could learn to program industrial robots, troubleshoot automated production lines, maintain machine-vision systems and sensors, protect connected factories from cyberattacks and work with AI systems controlling increasingly sophisticated manufacturing operations.
And Michigan wouldn’t be starting from scratch.
Michigan Apprentices Earn Nearly $90,000
Michigan had a record 23,200 active registered apprentices in 2025, ranking fourth nationally, according to the Michigan Center for Data and Analytics.
Nearly 8,600 people entered registered apprenticeship programs during the year and approximately 3,000 completed them.
The financial payoff can be substantial. Michigan apprenticeship completers employed one year after finishing their programs earned a median annual wage of about $89,260.
That raises an important question as Michigan prepares for potentially enormous workforce changes from AI:
Instead of trying to send every worker affected by AI back to college, could Michigan expand apprenticeships into AI, robotics and automation?
Pieces Of The System Already Exist
Some Michigan training programs are already moving in that direction.
Schoolcraft College in Livonia offers a mechatronics pre-apprenticeship through its Manufacturing & Engineering Center that includes mechatronics, occupational safety and robot tool-handling operations and programming. Students also can earn FANUC industrial robotics certification.
The Workforce Intelligence Network for Southeast Michigan operates as a registered-apprenticeship intermediary and has developed pathways in advanced manufacturing, information technology, cybersecurity and mobility.
Michigan Works! Southeast also promotes apprenticeship opportunities involving occupations such as mechatronics technologists, computer programmers, industrial machinery mechanics and electronics repairers.
These aren’t programs Michigan needs to invent someday.
Pieces already exist today.
Private Schools Offer Another Path
Michigan’s private technical schools provide another piece of the workforce puzzle.
Universal Technical Institute’s Canton Township campus offers a 12-month Robotics and Automation Technician certificate program covering industrial robotics, programmable logic controllers, industrial networking, digital electronics, C programming, instrumentation and control systems.
UTI says previous experience isn’t required and also offers an 18-month associate degree pathway.
The school cites a 2025 national median salary of approximately $73,900 for robotics and automation technicians.
That’s not an apprenticeship because students generally pay for their education rather than being paid by an employer while learning.
But it demonstrates that sophisticated robotics and automation skills don’t necessarily require a four-year bachelor’s degree.
The AI Factory Will Still Need Humans
Much of the debate surrounding artificial intelligence focuses on jobs AI could eliminate.
That’s only half the equation.
Someone still has to install, maintain, troubleshoot and repair the physical equipment inside increasingly automated factories.
Future manufacturing jobs could include industrial robotics technicians, automation and controls technicians, machine-vision specialists, industrial cybersecurity technicians and predictive-maintenance specialists.
AI itself could make those workers more productive by helping diagnose equipment failures, analyze sensor data or predict when machinery is likely to break.
The worker doesn’t necessarily disappear.
The worker’s toolbox changes.
Could Michigan Create An AI Manufacturing Apprenticeship?
Michigan’s traditional skilled trades provide a possible blueprint.
Electrical and other apprenticeships combine classroom instruction with thousands of hours of paid on-the-job training. Workers gain increasingly valuable skills while employers develop people for occupations they actually need.
Could that structure be applied to an AI Manufacturing Technician?
Early training might combine electronics, mechanical systems, workplace safety and computer programming before progressing into robotics, programmable logic controllers, machine vision, industrial networks, predictive maintenance and industrial cybersecurity.
The key difference from a traditional college program would be where much of that education occurs:
Inside an actual workplace.
And the apprentice gets paid.
Michigan’s AI Workforce Plan Creates An Opening
The timing is significant.
Michigan unveiled an AI Workforce Plan in May that concluded artificial intelligence is likely to transform far more jobs than it simply eliminates.
The state reported Detroit-area demand for AI skills increased 162% between 2023 and 2025, while advanced manufacturing employers are seeking AI-related skills at rates exceeding national averages.
Michigan also has expanded AI and digital-skills training through its 16 Michigan Works! agencies.
That creates an opportunity to connect two workforce strategies: teaching emerging AI and digital skills while using Michigan’s established apprenticeship model to deliver some of that training.
College Or Apprenticeship May Be The Wrong Question
Some future workers will need engineering, computer-science and other university degrees.
Others may need two-year technical degrees or intensive private technical-school training.
But potentially thousands more could learn the way generations of Michigan skilled-trades workers did:
On the job.
That’s particularly important because AI is also beginning to affect some white-collar occupations traditionally requiring bachelor’s degrees.
The future workforce debate therefore may be less about college versus skilled trades and more about matching education to the skills employers actually need.
Michigan May Need A New Mission, Not A New System
Michigan already possesses the major ingredients: automakers, thousands of manufacturers and suppliers, universities, community colleges, private technical schools, Michigan Works! agencies, unions and a large apprenticeship network.
What’s missing is a clearly defined statewide pathway connecting those pieces to emerging jobs in robotics, automation and artificial intelligence.
Michigan became an industrial powerhouse partly because generations of workers learned sophisticated manufacturing skills on the job.
The machines are changing.
The way Michigan prepares people to work with them may need to change just as quickly.
MITechNews will continue examining what AI-age apprenticeships could look like, what skills employers actually need, what these jobs could pay and whether Michigan manufacturers, unions and educators are prepared to build them.
