AI job titles outside tech now account for the majority of AI-labelled roles in five of the six major labour markets studied by Indeed, as new data shows the technology embedding itself into occupations ranging from physical therapy to truck driving at a pace that has left the traditional software sector behind.
From 264 titles to 822: how fast the shift has moved
The scale of the change in the United States is stark. Indeed Hiring Lab counted 822 distinct AI-touched job titles in Q1 2026, representing 8.3% of all titles with at least five postings, roughly one in every twelve job titles on the platform. In Q1 2022, there were just 264 such titles, covering 2.6% of all titles. The count actually fell to a trough of 159 titles in Q1 2023 before accelerating sharply upward.
Indeed defines a title as AI-labelled when at least five postings under that title include ‘AI’ in the employer’s wording in a given calendar quarter. That methodology, covering Q1 2022 through Q1 2026, means the figures track what employers are choosing to advertise, not what workers report doing.
The US leads all six markets in the proportion of AI-labelled roles sitting outside traditional tech occupations, at 63% as of Q1 2026, according to the Indeed Hiring Lab report. Germany follows at 59%, with the Netherlands at 58%, France at 54%, and the UK at 54%, per data cited by Foxxe Labs. Spain remains the outlier, with 64% of its AI-labelled titles still concentrated in traditional tech roles.
AI job titles outside tech are spreading fastest in Germany and the UK
Germany leads European markets in absolute volume, with 288 AI-touched job titles in Q1 2026, equal to 4.2% of all German titles on Indeed, up from just 72 in Q1 2022. The UK registered 160 titles at 2.7%, France 138 at 3.3%, the Netherlands 84 at 2.2%, and Spain 81 at 2.3%, according to the Indeed Hiring Lab data. By comparison, the UK had only 61 AI-labelled titles in Q1 2022, according to Euronews, meaning the count has grown nearly threefold in four years.
Italy was excluded from the six-country analysis entirely. Indeed Hiring Lab notes that ‘ai’ is a common Italian prepositional contraction meaning ‘to the’ or ‘at the,’ making a clean filter for genuinely AI-related job titles impractical.
The occupations turning up in the data are a long way from machine learning engineer or data scientist. Employers are now advertising for AI-enabled physical therapists, HR managers, marketers, salespeople, teachers, and truck drivers. The common thread, as Indeed economist Sneha Puri of Indeed Hiring Lab told NBC News, is straightforward: ‘Employers are adding “AI” to the titles of jobs that now require AI tools,’ with these being roles that have existed for years rather than newly created AI specialist or AI engineer positions.
That distinction matters for how policymakers and workers think about the labour market impact of AI. The dominant story in 2022 and 2023 was about AI creating entirely new technical roles. What the Q1 2026 data shows instead is augmentation: existing jobs being redefined to include AI tools as a core requirement, with employers signalling that in the title itself.
HR Dive reports that the Indeed Hiring Lab analysis also flags a secondary effect: adding AI to a job title may serve as a signal to candidates that an organisation is innovative, giving employers a recruiting incentive beyond the functional description. A separate 2025 Indeed Hiring Lab finding cited by HR Dive found three out of every 1,000 job postings mentioned generative AI terms, representing a 170% increase from January 2024 to January 2025.
Spain’s divergence from the rest of the pack is worth watching. With 64% of its AI-labelled titles still in tech occupations, it is following the pattern the other five markets showed two or three years ago. If those markets are a guide, the Spanish share of non-tech AI titles could climb considerably over the next few quarters.