AI specialist jobs are not one job. On 20 October 2026 the getAIwork board carried 32 listings with AI specialist in the title, out of 1,694 live, and they split into eight kinds of work: evaluating model output, data and transcription, sales engineering, language and subject training, in house builds, governance, staff training and marketing. The title says little. The description says everything.
Listen to this article, about 16 minutes. A synthetic voice reads the article and announces each section title as it begins; tables are read row by row and the questions at the end are left out.
Recorded 20 October 2026 from the article as published that day. Press a chapter to jump there; the highlighted line is what is playing. A play button sits beside every section heading, and once you scroll past this player a bar at the bottom of the screen keeps the controls in reach. Tap or click any sentence to hear the reading start from there.
On this page: every one of the 32 AI specialist listings on the getAIwork board on 20 October 2026, sorted into eight kinds of work with the employers named, four public boards read the same morning, fourteen pay figures as listed, and six forum accounts of what the title meant once someone held it.
Think you already know this? Five questions, one minute.
Every answer is on this page. Answer from what you know now; the page fills in the rest.
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1. Of the 1,694 live listings on the getAIwork board on 20 October 2026, how many carried both AI and specialist in the title?
733 titles carried the word AI and 77 carried specialist, but only 32 carried both, counted from every card on the getAIwork board on 20 October 2026. Read the section
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2. Which kind of work had the most AI specialist listings on the board on 20 October 2026?
Evaluating AI output had 7 of the 32, data and transcription 6, sales engineering 5 and marketing 1, as sorted from the postings on the board on 20 October 2026. Read the section
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3. What did the US Office of Personnel Management decide in its 2024 AI classification guidance?
The AI Classification Policy and Talent Acquisition Guidance, released for comment in April 2024, called a single series not conducive to agency needs and named data science, mathematics, software engineering and IT among the series AI work may sit in. Read the section
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4. What did the person joining AWS as an AI Specialist Solutions Architect say the job involved?
In an r/amazonemployees thread in October 2026 the poster described an adoption and architecture role for startups. It is one person’s account, paraphrased, and testimony rather than evidence. Read the section
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5. How many of the 32 listings carried a pay figure from the poster on 20 October 2026?
Fourteen listed a figure, four carried only an Adzuna feed estimate and fourteen showed nothing, read from the board on 20 October 2026. Every figure is as listed on the date shown; rates change and nothing is a promise of earnings. Read the section
How many AI specialist jobs are open right now?
The honest number is small, and the pages that rank for this query do not carry it: they are job description templates and a college careers blog, and none of them counted anything. So the count was done by hand. On 20 October 2026 the free, public getAIwork board held 1,694 live listings, screened from 46,433 postings according to its stats page updated 19 October 2026. Of those titles, 733 carry the word AI, 77 carry the word specialist, and 32 carry both. Four public remote boards were read the same morning through their own feeds, to check whether the board is unusual. It is not.
| Board, read 20 October 2026 | Postings read | Titles with specialist | Titles with AI and specialist |
|---|---|---|---|
| getAIwork board, every live listing | 1,694 | 77 | 32 |
| Jobicy, newest remote postings | 50 | 21 | 1 |
| Arbeitnow, newest postings | 300 | 6 | 0 |
| RemoteOK, public feed | 99 | 6 | 0 |
| Remotive, search for AI specialist | 12 | 0 | 0 |
Specialist is one of the commonest words on a job board; AI specialist is one of the rarest. The single Jobicy match was BetterHelp’s Senior Clinical QA Specialist, AI, which is also on the getAIwork board. You are fishing a small pond, and the fish in it are not one species.
What does an AI specialist actually do, according to the listings?
Each of the 32 was sorted by what the role is, read from the posting, not by what the recruiter called it. Eight kinds came out, with the employers named so you can check the sorting on the board.
| What the job is | Listings | Employers named on the listing |
|---|---|---|
| Evaluating AI output: QA, benchmarking, voice and agent evaluation | 7 | BetterHelp, Mindrift, Lila Sciences, E-Solutions, LILT, RWS Group, Amazon |
| Data and transcription work | 6 | Careerbloc, Mindtel, RWS TrainAI, Gramian Consulting Group, SGS Consulting, Krwizard |
| Sales engineering and customer enablement | 5 | Databricks, Kong, Checkout.com, Cobalt, Almetra |
| Language or subject AI trainer | 5 | Invisible Technologies (four listings), Jobgether |
| Building or modelling in house | 4 | Loopario, Xclusive Interiors, Owkin, Computershare |
| Governance and operations | 2 | VIQU IT Recruitment, Bumble |
| Training staff to use AI tools | 2 | Circle Group, Chroma Recruitment |
| Marketing | 1 | TEKsystems (SEO and AI Specialist) |
Eighteen of the 32, the first, second and fourth rows, are the work this site covers most: rating, transcribing or correcting what a model produces, or teaching it a language or a subject. That is platform work wearing a corporate title, as the AI trainer title so often is. Five are sales engineering: Databricks’ Senior Specialist Solutions Architect (AI/ML), Kong’s Senior AI Enablement Specialist and Checkout.com’s Commercial AI Solutions Specialist sell or support a product, and the AI in the title is the product category. Four build something: Loopario’s Senior AI Specialist in Berlin, posted 26 May 2026, is an engineering job by another name, while Xclusive Interiors in India titled its listing AI Specialist / AI Generalist and tagged it beginner, the two headed role the AI generalist article describes.
The two training specialist roles train people, not models. Worth knowing before you spend an evening on a prompt portfolio for a job that mostly wants a slide deck and patience.
If the platform kind is what you want, the match quiz sorts you towards the evaluation and training routes that fit your background. The sales engineering kind wants product experience no quiz can hand you, and the in house kind wants an engineering CV.
Why does one title cover a sales job and a transcription job?
Because nobody owns the title. The AI in Government Act of 2020 told the US Office of Personnel Management to create or update an occupational series for AI work. Its AI Classification Policy and Talent Acquisition Guidance, released for comment in April 2024, decided against a single series, calling one “not conducive to individual agency needs and missions”, and said AI positions may sit in data science, data analysis, mathematics, software engineering, IT or data management depending on the work. If the largest employer in the country will not pin the job to one box, a startup’s recruiter will not either.
The title also carries momentum. LinkedIn’s 2020 Emerging Jobs Report put artificial intelligence specialist first in the United States, with hiring growth it measured at 74 percent a year in the years before 2020, as carried in the World Economic Forum’s summary of the report; the original is no longer online, so the figure is as reported there. The Forum’s own Future of Jobs Report 2025 lists AI and machine learning specialists among the three fastest growing jobs in percentage terms, behind big data specialists and fintech engineers, from a survey of more than 1,000 employers. A title analysts keep calling the fastest growing is one employers keep reaching for, whatever the vacancy turns out to be. It is also why a Certified AI Specialist badge sells briskly and buys little: none of the 32 listings puts a certificate in its title, and the eight kinds of work have eight different doors, none of them a PDF.
What do people who hold the title report?
Six accounts across five Reddit threads from July to October 2026 were read for this section. Forum posts are testimony, not evidence; each is paraphrased and dated, and none could be checked with an employer.
On r/amazonemployees in October 2026, someone joining AWS in Bengaluru as an L6 AI Specialist Solutions Architect, with about 14 years of engineering behind them, described the job as designing how startups adopt AWS AI services: an adoption role, not research. On r/stocks in July 2026, a commenter wrote that pre sales staff, sales engineers and advanced technology specialists at Microsoft had their titles changed about two years earlier to variants of AI specialist and Copilot adoption, “old title with AI slapped on it”. That is one person’s account and unverified, but it matches the five sales engineering listings above exactly.
On r/stupidpol in August 2026, a commenter on a tech talent report said many of the AI roles being counted in New York are lawyers and finance staff who added AI to the title, and that a Legal AI Specialist is usually an attorney comfortable with the tools, not a programmer. On r/vfx the same month, a visual effects worker asked what AI Artist and AI Specialist are supposed to mean when the tools change weekly and the client could type the prompt.
On r/UKJobMarket in October 2026, a poster who read every UK AI and data advert that published pay reported that the title word alone moved the figure at the same employer and level, by roughly 20,000 to 25,000 pounds between analyst and engineer at Accurx and between data and machine learning at Monzo, from a sample where only about one advert in eight showed pay. A reply doubted the Monzo roles were real, and the poster conceded that ghost listings exist. On r/computervision the same week, engineers reported that the title on the payslip often differs from the one applied for, and that the description, not the label, tells you the work.
Where the accounts agree with the listings: the employer picks the title for its own reasons, and the sales engineering version is common. Where they cut against: the UK thread says a title word moves pay, which the 32 listings cannot confirm or deny, because fewer than half of them list a figure.
What do AI specialist jobs pay, as listed?
Fourteen of the 32 carry a figure from the poster. Four more carry only an estimate added by the Adzuna feed, which is not a listing and is left out, and fourteen list nothing. Every figure below is as listed by the named poster on the date shown; rates change, and nothing here is a promise of earnings.
| Listing | Employer | Listed pay | Posted or read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior Clinical QA Specialist, AI | BetterHelp | USD 125,000 to 150,000 a year | posted 19 October 2026 |
| Senior GTM Systems and AI Specialist | Cobalt | USD 135,000 to 160,000 a year | posted 13 October 2026 |
| Senior AI Enablement Specialist | Kong | USD 94,150 to 135,000 a year | posted 6 October 2026 |
| SEO and AI Specialist | TEKsystems, United States | USD 85,280 to 104,000 a year | board, 20 October 2026 |
| AI Governance Specialist | VIQU IT Recruitment, UK | GBP 90,000 a year | board, 20 October 2026 |
| AI IT Training Specialist | Circle Group, UK | GBP 55,000 a year | board, 20 October 2026 |
| AI and Digital Training Specialist | Chroma Recruitment, UK | GBP 50,000 a year | board, 20 October 2026 |
| AI LLM Speech and Audio Specialist | Krwizard, India | INR 600,000 to 900,000 a year | board, 20 October 2026 |
| AI Transcription Specialist, three month contract | Mindtel, India | INR 700,000 to 1,000,000 a year | board, 20 October 2026 |
| AI Transcription Specialist, three month contract | Careerbloc, India | INR 300,000 to 1,000,000 a year | board, 20 October 2026 |
| AI Specialist / AI Generalist | Xclusive Interiors, India | INR 200,000 to 360,000 a year | board, 20 October 2026 |
| AI Agent Evaluation Specialist | Mindrift | USD 30 an hour | board, 20 October 2026 |
| Speech AI Evaluation Specialist, Vietnamese | RWS Group | USD 18 an hour | board, 20 October 2026 |
| AI Data Specialist, French | RWS TrainAI | USD 16.50 an hour | board, 20 October 2026 |
The salaried US figures belong to the sales engineering and QA rows. The hourly figures belong to evaluation and data work on platform terms, paid per task hour with no minimum. The Indian contract listings quote annual bands for three month contracts, so the figure is a rate, not a year’s income. The highest paying AI jobs page shows the same split across the whole board, and the AI trainer advert quoting a rate nobody on this list is paid remains, as ever, an advert.
How do you apply for the kind you actually want?
Read the posting before the title, and ask it four questions. Does it name a product and customers you would meet? Sales engineering, and it wants product experience. Does it name a language, a subject or tasks? Trainer or evaluation work, usually on platform terms, and the door open to people without a technical background. Does it name a regulation or a framework? Governance. Does it describe a team you would build for? Engineering, whatever it is called.
Some board facts help. None of the 32 is tagged remote, although 521 of the board’s 1,694 listings are; eleven are tagged advanced, seventeen intermediate and four beginner, and three of the four beginner listings are evaluation or data work. By country, eleven are in the UK, six in the United States, five in India, three in the Netherlands, two each in Germany and France, and one each in Spain, Tajikistan and Thailand. The remote AI jobs count explains why the remote share is lower on salaried titles, and the AI consultant title splits the same way this one does.
Before you apply, the match quiz tells you which of the eight kinds your background already fits, and the free work board shows all 32 listings today, with no signup, so you can redo this count on any morning you like.
Frequently asked questions
Is an AI specialist the same as an AI engineer?
No. On 20 October 2026 the getAIwork board carried 590 titles with engineer in them and 32 with AI specialist. Engineer titles describe building; AI specialist titles span sales, evaluation, data, governance and training.
Do AI specialist jobs need a degree?
Not as a rule of the title. The 32 listings on 20 October 2026 ranged from beginner to advanced, and the four tagged beginner asked for a test or a language rather than a qualification. The sales engineering listings ask for product experience.
Are AI specialist jobs remote?
Rarely under that title. None of the 32 AI specialist listings on the getAIwork board on 20 October 2026 was tagged remote, while 521 of the board’s 1,694 listings were. Remote work on the board mostly carries trainer, annotator or expert titles.
Does a Certified AI Specialist course help you get one?
None of the 32 listings read on 20 October 2026 puts a certificate in its title. Evaluation and trainer roles use their own assessments, sales engineering roles want product experience, and in house roles want an engineering record.
Why do so few AI specialist listings show pay?
Fourteen of the 32 listed a figure on 20 October 2026, four carried only a feed estimate, and fourteen showed nothing. The US salaried postings showed pay most often; the UK and Indian postings showed it least.
Is the getAIwork board free to search for these roles?
Yes. The board at getaiwork.com/board/ is free and public with no signup, every listing is screened by a person before it appears, and the 32 AI specialist titles counted here can be checked there on any day.
Finished the page? The same five questions from the top, to see what stuck.
Platform statuses and listed pay change without notice. Pay figures are quoted only as listed by the poster on the date shown and are never a promise of earnings. This page was verified on the date shown and is rechecked on the weekly refresh.
