When analyzing demand for new jobs—like in AI—we often focus on the most frequently cited skills. While this highlights top employer requirements, there’s another group of skills also worth tracking - the "emerging skills": those rising in rank, even if not yet the most in-demand.
Emerging skills signal shifts in a role, helping us understand how jobs are changing. They may be entirely new, but more often, they are skills that are just new to that specific role, not the labor market overall.
So what are these emerging skills in AI related jobs?
For this analysis, AI-related jobs are defined as job postings citing at least one AI-related skill from a compiled list of 400+ skills across ten AI clusters (e.g., machine learning, genAI, AI ethics, autonomous driving, robotics).
We then analyze the change in demand for these skills between January 2022 (pre-ChatGPT release) and April 2026.
The Rise of Non-Technical Skills in AI Job Requirements
The table below shows the top 10 skills for absolute change:
While several are specialized AI capabilities, it is striking that many of these top ten skills transcend technical expertise; they require bridging organizational silos and demand high-level interpersonal engagement.
The 2025 Shift: Stakeholder and Operational Skills Surge
Digging further, it appears that 2025 was the year where this shift started to occur. The biggest shifts occurred in Q2 of 2025. Demand for cross-functional collaboration for example, nearly doubled between Q2 and Q3, and more than doubled between Q3 and Q4 of 2025. Similar patterns can be observed for stakeholder management, operational efficiency, operational excellence and AI infrastructure.
Operational and Stakeholder Skills Surge in AI Job Postings Since 2025.
"Trustworthiness" Demand Skyrockets, Driving Significant Salary Growth
"Trustworthiness" is another skill worth highlighting. Even though it didn’t make the top 10 for absolute growth, its demand has surged over 6000% since Q1 2022. Even more compelling, the median advertised salary for AI jobs requiring this skill dramatically increased from a below-average $84.4k in 2022 to a whopping, above-average $181.1k in 2025, underscoring its pivotal role in the AI conversation.
Employers are willing to pay a significant premium for AI workers with trustworthiness skills
The rapid rise of stakeholder, operational, and trust-related skills suggests that the future of AI work will depend on far more than technical expertise alone. As AI becomes more deeply embedded across organizations, employers are increasingly seeking professionals who can bridge teams, operationalize AI systems, and build trust in their outcomes. Tracking these emerging skills offers an early signal of how AI roles, and the workforce more broadly, are evolving in real time.
