The Lone Star State claimed the second-highest share of U.S. job listings related to artificial intelligence last year.
Texas advertised 66,624 AI-related job postings in 2022, the second-highest share of listings in the U.S. behind California. The Golden State saw more than double that number of listings over the year and is widely considered to be the premier hub for AI development, according to a recent report by GoTo, a global software firm.
However, the news is not all sunny for California, according to a 2023 report from Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) that GoTo based its findings on.
“California’s share of all AI job postings has decreased steadily since 2019, while Texas’ has marginally increased,” Stanford highlights in its report. “The fact that California no longer commands one-quarter of all AI-related jobs suggests that AI jobs are becoming more equally distributed among U.S. states.”
For instance, California’s roughly 142,000 AI job listings accounted for about 18% of the total share in 2022. Meanwhile, Texas accounted for only 8.4% of the total share, with New York rounding out the top 3 with 5.5%, according to GoTo’s report, which analyzed data from the Stanford report.
It is not entirely surprising that Texas was second only to California in the number of AI job postings in 2022, according to Jeremy Rafuse, vice president and head of digital workplace at GoTo.
“Texas’ tech sector has seen a significant surge in recent years with an influx of both companies moving into urban hubs like Austin and an increase in remote job opportunities shifting roles outside of traditional tech centers,” Rafuse told The Dallas Express.
“From streamlining IT operations to improving customer service, AI has quickly emerged as a major value-driver for companies, and we will very likely see the demand for these skills continue to grow both in Texas and across the country,” he said.
Although Texas has garnered a lot of attention with the amount of AI job listings advertised in 2022, residents of the Lone Star State have also found themselves susceptible to some of the main drawbacks of AI — job loss and job automation.
Texas employs about 3.8 million workers across the state. Although Texas has a large workforce, the state has nearly 500,000 at-risk jobs, which accounts for a potential AI job loss of 13.07%, according to Chamber of Commerce data.
A World Economic Forum report indicates that approximately 83 million jobs could be automated worldwide by 2027. In fact, the global AI market is expected to grow exponentially over the next decade and is forecast to cross $1 trillion by 2028 as more and more businesses adjust to the new AI frontier.
Although AI has exploded in 2023 and is only projected to continue growing, billionaire Elon Musk and other tech luminaries have called for a “pause” on AI development, citing the dangers advanced artificial intelligence could pose to civilization.
However, despite the early concerns suggesting that AI may be developing too fast, GoTo’s report claims that “a sizable majority of people are more than comfortable welcoming AI into their work and home in order to make their lives easier.”
