Looking ahead · what's actually hiring
New jobs AI is creating
30-second gist~30s read
Some "new AI jobs" you read about are real. Some are LinkedIn fashion. The rough test: does the role still exist when the next model is twice as smart? If yes, real. If no, hype.
If you want more
Three real new jobs
- AI safety / alignment researcher. The harder AI gets, the more this discipline grows. Genuinely new field; the demand is real and increasing.
- AI product manager. Building real AI features inside real products requires people who understand both the model's strengths and the user's reality. A growing share of PM job listings.
- AI evaluator / red-teamer. Quietly important — the people who try to break models before users do. Increasingly contracted by regulators, not just companies.
Three hyped ones
- "Prompt engineer" as a standalone job — was a real role in 2023; mostly absorbed into normal product/research work by 2025-26. The skill matters; the dedicated title doesn't.
- "AI ethicist" as a hire-once-and-forget role — many of these jobs have been quietly dissolved. The work is still being done; it just has different titles.
- "Chief AI officer" — sometimes real, often a CTO/CIO with a new title. Watch the budget, not the slide.