Job listings looking for people with AI skills are rising fast

AI gets a lot of attention for eliminating human jobs, but more and more it is also creating them.

The number of job postings that mention artificial intelligence has climbed in recent years as employers seek workers versed in AI, a recent report from the Brookings Institution shows. In the last year alone, AI-themed job postings increased by over 100%, the Washington, D.C.-based think tank found.

AI-related job postings have grown at an average annual rate of nearly 29% over the last 15 years — that outstrips the 11% rate of postings in the general economy, said Brookings, which based its findings on data from labor market analytics firm Lightcast.

Demand for AI expertise is growing as more companies start to integrate AI into their workflows. The share of companies using AI in the manufacturing sector has more than doubled from 4% in early 2023 to roughly 9% as of mid-2025, according to Brookings, citing data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Business Trends and Outlook Survey (BTOS).

Yet while AI job growth has accelerated in recent years, it makes up only a small fraction of the labor market overall. Investment bank Goldman Sachs estimates the peak pace of adoption will hit in the early 2030s.

“AI is definitely visible in the micro labor market data, but it doesn’t look like it’s driving the overall labor market dynamic,” said Joseph Briggs, a senior global economist at Goldman Sachs.

What kind of AI jobs?

The burgeoning AI job market involves a mix of skill sets ranging from advanced AI-specific roles, such as AI engineers, to more general AI-related positions such as software developers, according to Elena Magrini, global head of research at Lightcast.

In 2025, more than 80,000 job postings mentioned generative AI skills, up from 3,780 in 2010,  according to Brookings.

Cory Stahle, an economist at the Indeed Hiring Lab, said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch that the accelerating adoption of AI by businesses is spurring demand for consultants who can help companies integrate AI. Job listings relating to so-called responsible AI jobs, which focus on the ethical use of AI tools in business and society, are also on the rise, according to Indeed.

“In other words, the definition of what it means to be an ‘AI job’ is changing every day as businesses find new and creative ways to incorporate the technology responsibly,” Stahle said.

AI positions may prove an especially appealing sector of the U.S. labor market given that they tend to be associated with higher salaries. Job postings that mention AI skills pay an average of $18,000, or 28%, more per year than for similar roles that don’t require AI skills, according to a separate report from Lightcast.

Where are AI jobs to be found?

Unsurprisingly, AI job growth tends to be concentrated in tech hubs like Silicon Valley, which accounts for 13% of all AI-related job postings. Seattle accounts for 7% according to data from Lightcast.

But AI jobs are starting to surface in other parts of the country including the Sunbelt and along the East Coast between Boston and Washington, D.C. said Mark Muro, a senior fellow at Brookings Metro. Universities have also been a catalyst for AI job growth, he noted.

Magrini noted that AI skills are increasingly required in other non-tech fields like marketing, human resources and finance. Over half of job postings requesting AI skills in 2024 were outside IT and computer science, according to Lightcast data.

While uptake is uneven across geographic areas, Muro said he expects AI adoption by employers to increase more rapidly in the coming years as they figure out its benefits and limitations.

“There does seem to be good consensus that this is very important for productivity and that it does really energize regional leaders and business people,” he said.