US Job Titles Mentioning AI Rose to 822 in Q1 2026 After Earlier Declines in AI-Exposed Roles

The number of US job titles mentioning AI rose from 264 in 2022 to 822 in the first quarter of 2026, according to an analysis by Pawel Adrjan of the Indeed Hiring Lab. Those titles represented 8.3 percent of all titles with at least five postings in Q1 2026, up from 2.6 percent four years earlier. Sixty-three percent of the AI-touched titles fell outside tech fields.

Software development retained the largest share but lost ground as other categories added AI references to their postings. Management, marketing, education, and instruction increased their shares of AI-touched titles between 2022 and Q1 2026. " "One pattern that stands out is that many of the roles with AI in the title are jobs that have existed for decades," Adrjan said.

Adrjan added that the data point to demand rather than replacement. "When a job title includes AI, what we see in the data is that it's more of a signal of demand than a signal of replacement," he said. A separate analysis by Guillermo Gallacher at the Indeed Hiring Lab found that occupations more exposed to AI saw steeper declines in postings from May 2022 to May 2026.

The same occupations showed stronger rebounds from May 2025 to May 2026. "The relationship between AI exposure and job postings appears to be flipping, from job destruction to job creation," Gallacher said.