Over the past year, the D.C. metro area has outpaced most of the nation in new job creation tied to artificial intelligence, a trend likely to continue as demand for AI-based products and services climbs.
That's according to data compiled by UMD-LinkUp AI Maps — a joint effort from the University of Maryland's Robert H. Smith School of Business and LinkUp, a global labor market tracking firm — as part of an initiative that monitors AI job creation across the country.
Per the findings, D.C. itself ranks ahead of all 50 states when it comes to the ratio of AI-related job postings to the total number of all new job postings over the past 12 months. From March 2023 to March 2024, 1.77% of all job postings in D.C. were tied directly to roles involving AI, the research found, compared with the 1.55% figure for No. 2 Washington state and 1.46% for Virginia. California at 1.21% and Massachusetts at 1.08% rounded out the top five.
When looking at the D.C., Maryland and Virginia as a whole, the region accounted for 11.7% of the nation's 14,023 new AI job postings in March, second only to California, which accounted for 20.5%,
And throughout 2023, the D.C. metropolitan statistical area placed second behind the New York MSA for maintaining the highest average monthly number of AI jobs created. UMD-LinkUp AI Maps research identified Deloitte, Booz Allen Hamilton Inc., Leidos Holdings Inc. and SAIC Inc. as having more than a quarter of Greater Washington's AI job postings last year.
These job growth figures come amid a separate report published on Wednesday by Microsoft Corp. that surveyed business executives on the use of AI in the workplace. For the D.C. area specifically, the survey found that about half of this region's leaders would not hire someone who lacked AI skills.
Anil K. Gupta, a professor at the Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland and one of the co-directors leading UMD-LinkUp AI Maps, told me he expects the region's AI job creation momentum to remain steady thanks in large part to the demands of the Department of Defense, one of the largest earliest adopters of AI tech.
Gupta also noted these positions are being added by the federal outposts of several tech giants with large offices here like Google LLC and Microsoft Corp., not to mention Amazon.com Inc.'s HQ2 in Arlington. He then identified McLean-based Capital One Financial Corp. as being one of the largest recruiters for AI jobs across the entire banking industry.
"It's a very positive development for the economic future of this region," Gupta said.
Take, for instance, the employment of a machine learning engineer, someone who develops algorithms that are used for the creation and deployment of predictive models and systems. Gupta said professionals in this field gravitate toward regional hubs that possess other machine learning employment opportunities, creating a feedback loop that escalates over time.
"If this region can emerge as the second-biggest hub for AI jobs, not only is it good for the people who are here, but it also becomes a magnet for people from elsewhere who want to move to the region to work," he said.
As evidence of that gravitational draw, the Vets in Tech organization will host its first East Coast event at Microsoft Federal's headquarters in Arlington on May 16 to help pair veterans with AI-related jobs. Sponsors of this hiring event include Microsoft, Google, Meta Platforms Inc. and GDIT, the tech-focused arm of Reston-based General Dynamics Corp.
