It's America's fastest-growing job – thanks to ChatGPT
On the hunt for a new job? Building artificial intelligence tech could be a safe option.
The market for jobs in the AI sector has surged in the last two years, according to a recent analysis from the University of Maryland and job-tracking firm LinkUp — the latest in a slew of studies indicating AI skills are in high demand.
Anil Gupta, a professor of strategy, globalization and entrepreneurship at the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business who co-led the research, said the analysis showed a clear 'ChatGPT effect,' referring to how the OpenAI-developed chatbot's launch led to the job posting spike – replacing many IT-related job listings.
The analysis comes from AIMaps, a collaboration between the University of Maryland's Smith School of Business and LinkUp. The program tracks the growth of AI jobs across different sectors in the United States, such as manufacturing and retail.
Job postings in AI fields have spiked 68% in the United States since the end of 2022, while overall job postings have declined 17% in the same period, according to the AIMaps data. According to ZipRecruiter data provided to CNN, AI job postings on the site grew 124% from 2023 to the end of 2024.
In January, LinkedIn listed AI engineer and AI consultant as the fastest-growing jobs in the US, and PwC found last year that jobs requiring AI skills were growing more than three times as fast as all jobs.
On the other hand, IT job postings (including those that write programs not related to AI) have also declined 27% since the end of 2022, according to Gupta.
While AI has resulted in some new types of jobs, tech giants have also slashed their workforces after announcing major investments in AI technology — though not all the layoffs were because AI replaced human workers. Last year, Google laid off workers across its Google Assistant and hardware divisions a few months after announcing a multibillion dollar investment in the AI startup Anthropic. And a World Economic Forum survey last month found that 41% of employers intend to downsize their workforce in favor of AI by 2030.
'We already know GitHub Copilot and other AI tools are able to do 60-70% of the coding,' Gupta said. 'Four people can do the job of 10.'
The global AI race is only getting started, as evidenced by the recent release of DeepSeek, a Chinese startup that shook the market with an AI model reportedly developed at a fraction of the cost of American competitors like ChatGPT.
Gupta said DeepSeek's open-source approach — meaning its architecture is publicly available for other companies to use and adapt — could accelerate the AI industry's growth.
'This will lead to an even faster deployment of AI technology in every industry, be it software development, technical services, banking, insurance, manufacturing, or agriculture,' his team wrote in their analysis.
Over two years since ChatGPT helped spark an AI boom, American tech giants are still making hefty investments in their AI programs. In January, Microsoft announced plans to invest about $80 billion in fiscal 2025 on AI data centers, and President Donald Trump announced the creation of Stargate, a collaboration between OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle that plans to invest up to $500 billion in AI infrastructure in the coming years.
Artificial intelligence jobs are in especially high demand in the consulting sector, Gupta said, since non-AI firms typically hire consulting firms like Accenture and Bain to help develop AI tools — for example, a machine learning engineer or a product manager for a generative AI tool. Accounting firm Ernst & Young reported in December that 97% of business leaders whose organizations invested in AI saw positive returns on investment.
But many companies may still be slow to adopt the technology amid potential privacy and security risks, said Julia Pollak, chief economist at ZipRecruiter.
AI job growth is occurring alongside a broarder slowdown in hiring across the job market. Companies are increasingly looking to 'do more with less,' said Lisa Simon, chief economist at Revelio Labs, which tracks publicly available workforce data.
'They've been centralizing functions, eradicating unnecessary roles, reviewing every function and reducing layers of management, focusing very closely on cost control,' ZipRecruiter's Pollak said. 'That's been a direct result of high interest rates and reduced access to credit.'
Despite the higher demand for AI jobs, it is too soon to tell how the AI boom is impacting specific jobs, Pollak added. She speculates hiring plans may be 'leaner' now because AI tools have made some fields, such as content writing, more efficient.
'We think that the jobs that are in particular adopting AI are seeing larger hiring declines,' Simon said.
Companies' efforts to 'do more with less' extend beyond using AI in the workplace, with Revelio Labs reporting last week that US companies are increasingly hiring for high-skilled positions abroad, especially those that are suitable for remote work.
'The realization that companies no longer need to hire consultants or software engineers in the most expensive location has made offshoring an attractive, cost-saving option in workforce planning,' the report states.
The tech industry experienced rapid growth during the pandemic, as in-person businesses transitioned to online goods and services. But consumer behavior and economic activity have returned to pre-pandemic patterns, Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows.
Jobs in the software publishing sector grew 30% from March 2020 to September 2022 — but shrank 1% between September 2022 and December 2024, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Nationally, post-pandemic growth has been steadier, with a 2% increase in jobs between March 2020 and September 2022 and a 4% increase since then.
As for fears that AI will lead to mass unemployment, Gupta offered a more optimistic view, saying he believes the corporate world will instead adapt to the efficiency enabled by the technology.
'There was a time when a six-day work week was the norm, and now (we have a) five-day work week,' Gupta said. 'Could it be that in 10-20 years, it's a four-day work week? I think the prospects of that are very, very high.'
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