Ask HN: How to acquire professional experience in the age of AI as junior dev?

For quite a while now I read all these disheartening articles about newcomers to programming field feeling completely incompetent for being unable to acquire professional experience.

If it helps to make things a bit more comforting for them, I feel the same and I am a person with some form of experience.

How can anyone acquire professional experience nowadays, even if it means to start from near zero?

Any suggestions or thoughts on this topic?