What are AI skills? Five things employers ask for
AI skills are what a person does to get correct work out of an AI tool: picking the work to hand it, briefing it, checking what comes back, and building it into how the job is done. 25% of 39,564 job ads at 1,333 software companies ask for them, and 10% make them a requirement.
AI skills examples from real job ads
Hand AI the right work
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“You use Claude to read a reporter's last fifty bylines before you pitch them, to build monitoring that surfaces the three things that matter each morning, and to run a mock hostile interview with our CEO before a launch.”
Nash, marketing -
“You'll use AI to build account plans faster, catch expansion signals before they're obvious, and draft outreach that still sounds like you wrote it.”
incident.io, sales
Brief it well
Check what comes back
18% of ads that ask for AI also ask for this.
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“You use AI tools to do the work of three people, and you know when the output is wrong.”
Kinstead, operations -
“You use AI tools in your daily work and can show how you use them, including when you step in because the output isn't good enough.”
Docker, design
Build it into the work
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“You'll work in tools like Claude and Clay every day, and when a task repeats, you'll build the agent or automation that does it.”
Footprint, marketing -
“You use AI tools as part of how you work, beyond prompting, whether that is building reusable skills or agents, wiring tools together to automate reporting, or knowing which parts of the workflow should stay manual.”
Mighty Networks, finance
Know where it doesn’t belong
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“You use AI with good judgment to improve the speed and clarity of your day-to-day work while protecting sensitive data.”
Huntress, operations -
“You use AI tools in your own work and can identify where they will make support better, how to check their output, and when a person must take over.”
Composio, customer support and success
AI skills by role
Share of job ads that ask for AI, and the work the ads name most.
- Design 46% Ideas, prototypes, design to code
- Marketing 34% Briefs, copy, campaign analysis
- Product 31% Prototypes, specs, research synthesis
- Engineering 30% Writing, reviewing and testing code with coding agents
- People and recruiting 30% Sourcing, screening, workforce reports
- Finance 29% Analysis, documentation, close tasks
- Data 27% Queries, pipelines, recurring reports
- Legal and compliance 26% Research, drafting, contract review
- Operations 26% Automations that replace manual work
- Customer support and success 20% Drafting replies, runbooks, account data
- Sales 17% Account research, outreach, deal prep
AI skills vs agent skills
Search for “AI skills” and you also find agent skills: files that teach an AI agent how to do a task, such as Claude’s Agent Skills. Those belong to the AI. AI skills belong to the person. Writing agent skills is one AI skill, and a few ads ask for it.
“Hands-on experience using AI across sourcing, market mapping, and interview prep, and building the agents or SKILLs that carry what works to the whole team.”
How to tell if a candidate has AI skills
Ask them to do a real task from the job with their own AI tool, and read their conversation with it. Using AI a lot is not the skill. Noticing when it’s wrong is.
Questions about AI skills
What are AI skills?
What a person does to get correct work out of an AI tool: picking the work to hand it, briefing it, checking what comes back, and building it into how the job is done.
What are examples of AI skills at work?
Drafting outreach with AI that still sounds like you, checking an AI summary against its source, prototyping a design with Cursor or v0, or building an automation that replaces a weekly report. Only 24% of ads that ask for AI skills name a tool.
Which roles ask for AI skills most?
Design (46% of job ads), marketing (34%) and product (31%), then engineering (30%). Sales asks least, at 17%.
Are AI skills the same as AI fluency?
Mostly. Job ads use the two for the same thing. AI literacy is narrower: knowing what AI is and what can go wrong, without having to use it well.
What is the difference between AI skills and agent skills?
AI skills belong to a person. Agent skills are files that teach an AI agent how to do a task, such as Claude’s Agent Skills. Writing them is one AI skill.
How do you test AI skills when hiring?
Give a real task from the job, let the candidate use their own AI tool, and read their conversation with it. Our guide to testing AI skills has the steps.