In the month of January 2024 alone, the search term “open AI jobs” exceeded 2.9 million searches across the United States, a 20% uptake compared to the same period in 2023, according to research published by Statista.

Analysis of Google searches via Google Trends reveals that searches for “AI jobs” climbed consistently month after month this year, reaching its highest peak in May.

This strong interest in pursuing AI jobs and careers is likely due to several factors, including:

• Widespread adoption of artificial intelligence across multiple industries outside of tech
• New, in-demand job roles emerging
• Fear of displacement from one’s current job
• And of course, the lucrative salaries associated with AI roles due to the combination of high demand and low supply of talent

Specializing in artificial intelligence, or even adding it to your skill set as part of your existing role, can be highly rewarding and exciting, as you are able to gain first-hand glimpses of the tremendous benefits it offers in reducing time and money, fast-tracking your productivity, and offering insights that you would not have been able to gather anywhere else. And of course, there’s the fact that Generative AI, alone, is a skill that can boost your salary by as much as 47%—making it the highest-earning tech skill right now, according to Indeed.

Top 10 Sectors Hiring The Most AI Jobs In 2024

In a recent study, AIPRM analysts set out to discover the U.S. sectors and industries with the highest share of AI jobs posted within this year.

To accomplish this, they scraped a dataset of 120,000 LinkedIn job postings from Kaggle, which revealed these to be the top 10 industries to have the most AI jobs:

1. Information and communication
2. Professional, scientific and technical activities—(this is certainly not surprising)
3. Arts, entertainment and recreation
4. Financial and insurance activities
5. Manufacturing
6. Electricity, gas, steam and air conditioning supply
7. Public administration and defense—compulsory social security
8. Agriculture, forestry and fishing
9. Education
10. Other service activities

7 In-Demand AI Jobs In 2024

The top AI jobs identified in the first three industries—information and communication, professional and technical, and entertainment/arts—tend to be:

1. Data scientist
2. AI researcher
3. Machine learning engineer
4. Data researcher
5. Algorithm developer
6. AI artists/designer
7. VR/AR developer

The surge in AI job interest demonstrates the reality that we are rapidly approaching a future in which AI skills will be essential across all industries and sectors. It’s no longer confined to the tech industry.

If you are a job-seeker, you will soon realize that your ability to pivot into AI-related roles is critical to your job search success, and in enabling you to stand out as a candidate in the talent pool, as companies continue to undergo digital transformation and AI implementation.

And even if you are not actively looking for jobs, it is still essential for you to be aware of the different ways that AI will disrupt your specific industry, and what AI-focused roles and functions you might soon be collaborating with in your day-to-day work. With AI specialists added to your team, how might that affect your daily operations, the tasks that are essential to your role, who you report to, etc.?

Additionally, we need to think about AI jobs beyond the roles listed above, and consider that AI is part of our everyday work lives. Companies are swiftly recognizing that AI not only offers automation, but it can drastically enhance decision-making processes, and even optimize customer experiences while improving operational efficiency. Therefore, professionals are needed who equip themselves with AI knowledge and technical proficiency, build interdisciplinary skills, pivot into fully technical AI roles if need be, and become AI hybrids—essentially an employee who possesses a strong understanding of their field, alongside AI and data analytics skills.

AI jobs alone will not give you a career advantage. Not everyone desires to work exclusively in tech. But AI-enabled jobs—and the skill sets that come with them—will take your career to the next level.