The scale of the shift towards AI roles is well-documented. LinkedIn's 2026 Jobs on the Rise report ranked AI engineer as the No. 1 fastest-growing job title in the U.S., with postings up 143% year over year in 2025. AI researchers also landed among the top five fastest-growing jobs on the same list.
CompTIA's State of the Tech Workforce 2026 report quantifies demand with more than 275,000 active U.S. job postings referencing AI skills in January 2026 alone. CompTIA also projects that tech occupations will see AI-driven growth well above the national rate over the next decade, led by data scientists and analysts (420%), cybersecurity analysts and engineers (346%), and software developers and engineers (188%).
This demand isn't limited to a handful of tech giants. Employers across finance, health care, manufacturing and professional services are hiring for AI-fluent talent, showing how the demand for jobs in AI isn't limited to a handful of tech giants.
What are the fastest growing AI jobs?
Here's a closer look at five roles driving that demand, along with the closest wage and growth data available and where a degree fits in. AI job titles are new enough that the Bureau of Labor Statistics doesn't track most of them individually yet, so where noted, the wage and growth figures below come from the closest occupational category BLS does track, not a title-specific AI number.
AI engineer
AI engineers build and deploy AI models and systems, including AI agents and large language models that companies use in production. It's the single fastest-growing job title on LinkedIn's list, and the most common backgrounds transitioning into the role are software engineers, data scientists and full-stack engineers.
BLS doesn't track "AI engineer" as its own occupation, but the closest tracked category, software developers, quality assurance analysts and testers, carries a median annual wage of $131,450 and 15% projected growth through 2034. ASU's online Bachelor of Science in software engineering builds the programming foundation this role depends on.
Machine learning engineer
Machine learning engineers design and train the models powering prediction, classification and decision-making systems. This role overlaps closely with AI engineer in both skill set and hiring pipeline. LinkedIn's report groups them together as one of the fastest-growing categories on the platform.
The closest BLS-tracked category is computer and information research scientists, with a median annual wage of $171,200 and 15% projected growth through 2034. ASU's online Master of Computer Science goes deeper into the algorithms and systems work this role requires.
Data scientist
Data scientists extract insights and build predictive models from large, often messy datasets. Available data show this as one of the most AI-transformed occupations in the workforce. BLS projects a median annual wage of $112,590 for data scientists, with 34% growth through 2034, among the fastest-growing occupations BLS tracks in any field. CompTIA's separate 10-year projection puts AI-driven growth for data scientists and analysts significantly higher, at 420%.
ASU's online Bachelor of Science in data science directly prepares students for this career.
NLP engineer
Natural language processing (NLP) engineers build the systems that let AI understand and generate human language, the technology behind chatbots, translation tools and text analysis at scale. It's a specialized branch of machine learning engineering rather than its own BLS occupation, so the same computer and information research scientists data applies where the median annual wage is $140,910 and job growth is projected at 20%.
ASU's online Master of Computer Science in big data systems is built for this kind of large-scale data and language-systems work.
Prompt engineer
Prompt engineers design and refine the inputs that get reliable, useful output from AI models, part technical skill, part communication skill. It's one of the newest titles on this list, without an established BLS wage category yet, but it's a visible piece of the AI-skills hiring surge CompTIA identified in its 275,000-posting count.
ASU's online Bachelor of Science in artificial intelligence in business connects the technical side of this role with the business context that makes prompt engineering valuable in a company setting.
The human skills that set AI candidates apart
While technical skills can get you in the door, what increasingly separates candidates in crowded candidate pools and throughout their careers are the skills AI can’t automate.
PwC's 2026 Global AI Jobs Barometer, which analyzed more than a billion job postings worldwide, found that entry-level roles most exposed to AI are now seven times more likely to require traditionally senior skills — leadership, judgment, creativity and face-to-face collaboration — than similar roles were before AI adoption accelerated. These "seniorized" entry-level roles have grown 35% since 2019, while other entry-level roles have shrunk 10% over the same period.
The pattern makes sense: AI is absorbing the routine, repetitive work that used to be the on-ramp for junior employees. What's left is judgment-heavy work like deciding what a model's output actually means, catching when it's wrong and communicating that clearly to non-technical people. That's not a skill you pick up from a certification alone. It's built through coursework that pairs technical depth with real collaboration and communication practice, capstone projects and case studies, all of which put you in front of real problems, not just code.
Take your first step toward an AI career
ASU offers 400+ online degrees, including multiple programs across engineering, computer science, data science and business that all build toward the roles above. Request more information by filling out the form below to connect with an enrollment coach who can answer your questions about our programs and more.
