Dive Brief:
-
U.S. companies are collectively investing more than $650 million in annual salaries for talent that can work with artificial intelligence, according to a study from Paysa. For the report, Paysa gathered information from job postings and then determined salary ranges based on information from users, recruiters, companies and government data.
-
On average, the top 20 companies hiring AI experts will spend more than $33 million to build out their talent pool, according to the report. That number, however, is skewed because of the large investments from leading providers. Based on the average net salary for companies hiring AI experts, Amazon is looking to invest $227.8 million, followed by Google and Microsoft, which are looking to invest $130 million and $75 million, respectively.
-
The investment in AI talent comes as some U.S. companies have raised at least $1 billion to fund AI development, according to the report. By 2022, the AI market is expected to be worth more than $16 billion.
Dive Insight:
So far there’s been lot of data about how AI and automation will replace workers or cause dramatic levels of worker retraining. Paysa’s study is one of the first to look at how AI will drive significant employment growth.
Today, there’s a huge gap between where most businesses are with AI and where they are expected to be in the next 12 months. What companies need to advance their AI capabilities is talent. Paysa predicts there are currently over 10,000 AI related positions open at U.S. companies right now, with no sign of a slowdown anytime soon.
In other words, it’s a good time to be an employee with any type of AI-related skills, especially as the market is expected to continue to grow. IDC recently predicted that AI-related hardware, software and services companies will jump from $8 billion in 2016 to $47 billion by 2020.
