How to write AI skills into a job description.
Name the work they will do with AI, and name the check. “Curious about AI” tells a candidate nothing, and it tells you nothing either. A good line says which tasks AI is used for in this job and what the person checks before the work goes out.
How job ads ask for AI skills now
Claude is named mostFour ways to write AI skills into a job ad, weakest to strongest
- 1 Curiosity
“Demonstrated curiosity about AI and a willingness to adopt AI tools to work smarter, move faster, and deliver better results.”
Notion, legal and compliance - 2 Uses it every day
“Comfortable using AI tools to improve efficiency and quality in day-to-day work, with a willingness to explore new ways of applying them.”
Spotify, finance - 3 Names the work
“Comfort using AI in your design workflow: you use tools like Figma AI, Claude, Cursor, or v0 to generate ideas, prototype quickly, and turn designs into working code.”
Eight Sleep, design - 4 Names the check
“Hands-on experience using AI tools in real work (ChatGPT, Claude, Copilot, n8n or similar): you've briefed an assistant on a task, iterated on the prompt, checked its output, and formed opinions about where it fails.”
Lendable, customer support and success
An AI skills line to adapt for your job ad
“You use [an AI assistant] for [two real tasks from this job]. You check what it gives you against [the source], and you can tell us about a time it was wrong.”
AI skills job description examples, by role
- Engineering
“Use AI coding tools (Cursor, Claude Code) as a core part of your daily workflow; apply strong engineering judgment and review rigor to AI-generated code before it ships, holding it to the same bar as hand-written code.”
- Product
“Daily use of AI assistants, agents, and AI-assisted build tools (such as Claude, Claude Code, or Cursor) to ship scripts, reports, and prototypes, with good judgment about when to verify output and when AI is the wrong tool.”
- Marketing
“You will use AI and data tools daily to improve efficiency and inform your work, while remaining accountable for the accuracy and quality of everything you deliver.”
- Finance
“Demonstrated ability to use AI tools for analysis, research, and workflow automation, with sound judgment in validating outputs.”
- People and recruiting
“Experience using AI tools as a routine part of your own work through a repeatable process, with a habit of checking the output for accuracy before relying on it.”
- Legal and compliance
“You are comfortable using AI tools, checking their output, and distinguishing work that can be automated from decisions that require a lawyer.”
- Sales
“You’ll also be using AI every day to run your own territory, from qualification to research to how you read a deal, so you’re not just talking about the technology, you’re operating on it.”
Three mistakes when writing AI skills into a job ad
| Mistake | Why it does not work |
|---|---|
| One sentence pasted into every ad | One company uses the same AI line in its product, HR, finance and customer support ads. It says nothing about any of those jobs. |
| A list of tools with no task | Naming Claude or Cursor without the work tells a candidate which app to open, not what good looks like. |
| “AI-first mindset” | Every candidate says yes to it. |
Should AI skills be required or nice to have?
If the person will use AI every day in the job, make it required and test it. If not, leave it out. A nice-to-have line that nobody tests only filters out the honest candidates.
Then test the AI skills you asked for
An ad can ask for the skill, but only a task shows it.
How to test AI skillsQuestions about AI skills in job descriptions
Should job ads ask for AI skills?
If the person will use AI every day in the job, yes, and test it. If not, leave it out. 25% of job ads at 1,333 software companies ask for it now.
How do you word AI skills in a job description?
Name the work they will do with AI, and name the check. For example: “You use an AI assistant for [two real tasks from this job]. You check what it gives you against [the source], and you can tell us about a time it was wrong.”
Should a job ad name a specific AI tool?
Name it if the team uses one tool and the person will use it from day one, and name the work next to it. A tool on its own tells a candidate which app to open, not what good looks like. 24% of ads that ask for AI skills name a tool, and Claude is named most.
Is AI a requirement or a nice-to-have in a job ad?
If the person will use AI every day in the job, make it required and test it. If not, leave it out. A nice-to-have line that nobody tests only filters out the honest candidates.
How many companies ask for AI skills in job ads?
25% of 39,564 job ads at 1,333 software companies asked candidates to use AI in October 2026, and 95% of companies with 10 or more open roles asked in at least one ad.