Aftershocks are still rumbling from the earthquake from Amazon laying off 14,000 employees “because of culture not money.” Data shows that most companies expect AI information and processing to reshape business between 2026 and 2030. As AI replaces jobs, it’s also creating new ones, along with a new workforce behind the scenes. A new report reveals the five most in-demand AI jobs with entry points for educators, editors, legal professionals and medical personnel seeking to pivot into an AI role.
The Most In-Demand AI Jobs: AI Adjacent Roles
Imagine you love your job, have received great reviews and feel like you’re on top of your game. Then out of nowhere, you’re blindsided with a termination. Part of the shock is that there are no visible signs–even when the observable signs are glowing.
As economic uncertainty looms, companies are restructuring behind the scenes, and “quiet layoffs” are increasing in today’s workplace. Companies are tightening their budgets and using “quiet layoffs” to reduce headcount without making formal announcements. This pattern used to be called “quiet cutting” when I wrote about it in a previous story for Forbes.com.
How can you prevent this from happening to you? As generative AI systems scale across industries, eliminating certain jobs, it’s creating new ones. A new AI workforce is emerging behind the scenes in AI-adjacent roles, composed of professionals from fields like education, nursing and the legal system.
“Exploring these AI-adjacent roles can be a smart career move for professionals looking to pivot or upskill without needing to code,” Brower says. “These positions offer meaningful, high-impact work, helping ensure AI systems are accurate, ethical and useful, while providing competitive pay.”
These aren’t gig jobs or research positions, either, according to Christopher Brower, co-founder and president of HireArt. They’re structured, W-2 jobs that require oversight, training and consistency. Sometimes they are temporary, full-time contract labor. These trained experts refine AI model outputs with human judgment and domain-specific skills and knowledge.
Susan Gonzales, founder of AIandYou, observes that, given the rapid growth of agentic AI and emerging technologies, we’re entering a new era of hybrid work where humans and AI will collaborate across every sector. She predicts that the need for system-wide AI fundamentals training will become clear in 2026, marking a pivotal shift in how companies prepare employees for the AI-powered workplace.
The 5 Top Most In-Demand AI Jobs
HireArt supports leading AI firms in sourcing and managing this specialized talent. A recent analysis of hiring data pinpoints the top AI high-paying jobs and fast-growing entry points to help you pivot from a previous role such as education or medical staff.
Brower points out that is one of the fastest-growing entry points into AI work. It requires no coding but does demand consistent, thoughtful human oversight on a large scale. “These roles aren’t speculative,” he explains. “Companies are hiring people now—from nurses to legal analysts to educators—as essential collaborators in building safer, smarter, more accurate AI systems.”
Here’s a closer look at five of the most in-demand roles today, how much they pay per hour, what they require and how you can pivot into them:
1. Legal Evaluators ($41.67 per hour).
Legal evaluators apply their legal training to ensure the accuracy and appropriateness of AI-generated outputs used in legal contexts. That includes contract clause classification, fact-checking case law citations, and evaluating the clarity and soundness of legal reasoning.
These roles are unique because they demand critical thinking, not just domain knowledge. A strong ethical compass is key to knowing when and how to correct an AI’s output. If you’re a paralegal, compliance analyst or law school graduate seeking to pivot into an AI evaluator, here are three things required of you, according to HireArt:
- Comfortably merge legal expertise with digital workflows such as AI-assisted document review or clause identification
- Understand AI system limitations and develop sound judgment about when human oversight must intervene.
- Expect to be tested through real-world samples such as critiquing flawed model outputs or identifying risky automation behavior
2. Medical and Healthcare Annotators ($45.56 per hour).
Medical annotators label and validate health data to improve clinical AI applications—ranging from radiology image review to checking AI-generated diagnoses and notes. These roles are unique because they impact real-world patient safety, so precision and privacy compliance aren’t optional, they’re core requirements.
If you’re a nurse, medical coder or health-records specialist, these jobs could be for you. But in order to pivot, you will need these three qualifications:
- Fluency in medical terminology, anatomy, diagnostic coding (ICD‑10, SNOMED CT) and EHR systems like Epic or Cerner
- Certifications (e.g., CHDA, CPHIMS, ARRT) expected along with knowledge of HIPAA and data privacy
- Practice with annotation tools like Labelbox or DICOM viewers and practical assessments using anonymized datasets
3. Language and Cultural Experts ($40.00-$62.50 per hour)
Language and cultural experts ensure AI-generated content respects linguistic accuracy and cultural nuance. Whether reviewing Mandarin translations or evaluating how well an AI mimics Italian cinema critique, the role requires deep subjectivity and cultural literacy.
According to HireArt, the AI’s performance hinges on how well it can reflect nuance. In these roles, you aren’t just fixing grammar—you’re ensuring cultural authenticity. If you have a background as a translator, editor, screenwriter or cultural consultant, you might qualify. In order to pivot, here are the skills you need:
- Be fluent in both language and context, understanding tone, idioms, genre conventions and cultural touchpoints
- Show your work like portfolios that include writing samples, translation critiques or cultural commentary
- Familiarity with localization tools and QA platforms
4. Education Academic Content Reviewers ($30.00-$42.50 per hour)
These reviewers assess educational content generated by AI—fact-checking it, ensuring pedagogical soundness and improving clarity. They help make AI-produced learning modules accurate, unbiased and instructionally valuable.
This role is unique because it balances intellectual rigor with educational empathy. Reviewers must consider how real learners will engage with the AI’s output.If you have a background as an adjunct professor, curriculum developer or tutor, you might be able to pivot if you can do the following:
- Demonstrate strong subject-matter expertise in fields like economics, law or history
- Understand instructional design principles and content quality metrics (accuracy, clarity and bias)
- An understanding of tools like LMS platforms (Canvas, Moodle) and content-review systems
5. Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF) Contributors ($49.26 per hour)
RLHF contributors help train AI models by ranking and commenting on model outputs, highlighting what’s clear, factual or ethical and what’s not. Their feedback directly tunes AI behavior. If you have a background of content moderator, QA tester, tech-savvy humanity graduate, this role could be for you. And if you’re interested in pivoting, here’s what you need to be able to do:
- Understand how RLHF works, providing structured feedback to improve generative models over time
- Engage with output-ranking interfaces and content moderation dashboards
- Demonstrate strong written communication and judgment
A Final Takeaway On The Most In-Demand AI Jobs
Brower asserts that developing in-demand AI skills now, future-proofs your career, positioning you for the most in-demand AI jobs that are well compensated and essential across industries. “Whether you come from healthcare, law, education or cultural work, you can pivot and stay on the cutting edge of AI innovation and contribute in ways that machines alone cannot replicate,” he concludes.