Background
While much attention is given to jobs that AI might eliminate, it’s equally important to recognize that AI – particularly autonomous agents – is also creating entirely new job categories. Throughout history, major technological shifts have spawned new professions (think of how the IT revolution gave us web designers, IT administrators, data scientists). The rise of agentic AI is no different. As companies integrate AI agents into their operations, they are hiring for roles that didn’t exist a few years ago, roles designed to ensure these AI systems are implemented effectively, ethically, and in alignment with business strategy. From AI orchestration engineers to prompt architects to human-AI collaboration leads, a cadre of new professions is emerging. One analysis by the Washington Post in late 2025 identified at least 16 new roles that generative AI has already created or reshaped at leading companies. These jobs range from highly technical positions to creative and managerial ones – reflecting that working with AI is a multi-disciplinary effort. Let’s explore some of the prominent new job categories born from the rise of AI agents.
AI Orchestration Engineer
As discussed earlier, orchestrating multiple AI agents is a complex task – and it’s now someone’s full-time job. An AI orchestration engineer is responsible for connecting various AI agents, tools, and workflows so they function smoothly as a whole . At a company like KPMG or Salesforce, this might involve designing how an HR chatbot hands off to a recruiting agent, or how a customer service AI escalates issues to a human. The orchestration engineer defines the autonomy levels and guardrails for agents, ensuring they have the right data and triggers to work in concert. According to job listings, skills for this role include experience in context and memory design for agents, familiarity with agent communication protocols, and the ability to implement guardrails to improve reliability (notice how guardrails and reliability are emphasized – a lot of this job is making sure AI agents don’t go rogue or break). In essence, this person is the systems integrator of AI agents, ensuring many moving parts come together.
Prompt Engineer / AI Conversation Designer
One of the earliest new roles to emerge with generative AI was the prompt engineer. This role has now evolved and expanded. Prompt engineers (sometimes called AI content designers or conversation designers) craft the prompts and dialogue flows that AI agents use to interact. For example, a prompt engineer at Adobe might design strategies for AI agents to generate marketing copy in a brand’s tone, or at a bank they might create the conversation flows for a mortgage chatbot. The job involves understanding both the capabilities and limitations of large language models (LLMs), and writing prompts, examples, or scripts that yield the desired behavior . It’s part creative writing, part system tuning. Companies have started listing prompt engineering as a required skill even in broader roles – the WPost cites Adobe seeking a prompt engineer to build AI agent personas and behaviors . We also see titles like AI Conversation Designer, which at Salesforce involves creating the “language, flow, and personality” of AI interfaces . Essentially, they make sure interactions with AI feel natural, helpful, and on-brand. These roles bridge user experience (UX) design and AI – requiring empathy for user needs, plus technical understanding of how LLMs handle prompts.
Knowledge Architect / AI Training Specialist
AI agents are only as good as what they know. Enter the knowledge architect (or sometimes “AI curriculum designer”). This role focuses on shaping what an AI agent knows and how it accesses knowledge. At KPMG, a knowledge architect is tasked with structuring information for AI agents – for example, building knowledge graphs or databases that an agent can query to get accurate context . They ensure the agent’s knowledge is up-to-date, comprehensive, and organized in a way the AI can utilize. It also involves capturing institutional knowledge and feeding it into the AI’s training or retrieval systems. Skills mentioned include the ability to describe data in a domain context and understanding how to implement knowledge bases. Similarly, an AI Training Specialist might curate the data used to fine-tune models or do reinforcement learning with human feedback (RLHF). These people make sure the AI agent learns the right things and can recall the right information at the right time. As companies treat AI agents like a new kind of workforce, these roles are akin to trainers or content librarians for AI.
Human-AI Collaboration Lead / Adoption Strategist
Some new jobs are less about building the AI, and more about managing the intersection of humans and AI in the workplace. A Human-AI Collaboration Lead defines how teams will incorporate AI agents into their workflows . At Salesforce, this role requires experience in change management and organizational strategy . They essentially create frameworks and strategies for employees to work alongside AI agents effectively. For example, they might develop best practices for when an employee should defer to an AI recommendation versus when to override it, or how to ensure that human workers trust and effectively supervise AI outputs. This role recognizes that deploying AI is as much about people as technology; it’s a change in work culture and process, and someone needs to guide that.
Related is the AI Adoption Strategist (KPMG mentioned an upcoming role with that title) . This person aligns AI agent deployments with business strategy and workforce planning. They make sure AI tools are actually embraced by staff and delivering value, rather than sitting unused due to resistance or poor integration. They also ensure that adoption is done ethically and with attention to worker morale and training (so employees feel augmented by AI, not alienated or in fear of replacement). Skills include business process transformation and knowledge of safe, trustworthy AI frameworks .
AI Ethicist / AI Policy Manager
As AI agents become integral to operations, companies are hiring AI ethics and policy leads. These roles involve setting guidelines for responsible AI usage, auditing AI decisions for bias or compliance, and staying ahead of regulations. An AI ethicist might work with orchestration engineers to implement fairness checks in agent workflows or ensure the AI’s decisions can be explained and justified. They often need understanding of both the technology and the legal/ethical standards. For instance, Pinterest hiring a Responsible AI Architect tasked with implementing safeguards and requiring familiarity with machine learning architectures and cross-team leadership . That indicates even technical architects are now being specialized for responsible AI focus.
AI Auditors and AI Risk Managers
Echoing the concept of auditor agents monitoring other agents, there are also human roles for AI auditors or AI risk managers. Their job is to continuously evaluate AI agent performance and risk. For example, they might regularly review logs of decisions made by a high-stakes agent (like a loan approval AI) to ensure it’s not drifting into unsafe territory. They develop risk assessment frameworks (some of which were discussed under governance) and ensure compliance with those. Essentially, this is a new flavor of compliance officer, specialized for AI. They may coordinate closely with external auditors or regulators as well.
New Technical Roles – AI Engineers and Architects
It’s worth noting even existing tech roles are morphing. AI Engineer as a title has been around, but the demand for it has spiked beyond tech companies (e.g., Best Buy hiring AI engineers for retail-focused AI solutions ). AI Architects now explicitly include designing agent and LLM infrastructure. The interesting thing is, LinkedIn data shows many of these roles appear outside the pure tech industry – retailers, banks, consulting firms are all creating these positions because every industry is looking to deploy AI agents in their domain.
New Creative and Media Roles – AI Content Curators, AI Artists
With AI agents generating content, we see roles like AI content curator/editor – someone who works with AI-generated material, curating or improving it. Also AI artist roles (sometimes called AI production artist) have emerged in media companies where producing visuals or videos with AI tools is key . These positions blend creativity with knowledge of how to prompt and guide creative AI tools to get the desired style.
Scale and Outlook
These new roles are not niche one-offs; companies are hiring at scale. A Brookings Institution fellow noted that 20% of U.S. professionals have job titles today that didn’t exist in 2000, and that generative AI is accelerating this introduction of new titles . That trend is visible on platforms like LinkedIn, which now teems with postings for “Prompt Engineer” or “AI Integration Specialist.” Furthermore, recruiters are actively seeking people with AI fluency – not necessarily to develop models, but to manage and leverage AI. According to McKinsey, demand for AI-related skills in job postings has jumped several-fold in just two years, including skills for managing AI systems and ensuring quality. This implies that even roles not explicitly labeled “AI” will require familiarity with AI tools.
Concluding Thoughts
The advent of AI agents is reshaping the labor market in creative ways. For every repetitive task an agent automates, a new higher-level task emerges for humans – whether it’s designing the agent’s behavior (prompt and orchestration roles), feeding it the right knowledge (knowledge architects), governing its conduct (ethics and risk roles), or enhancing collaboration between agents and people (adoption strategists, collaboration leads). History shows that technology tends to create more jobs than it destroys in the long run, and we are seeing that play out: new hybrid jobs at the intersection of AI and human expertise are being born. These roles often pay well and require a mix of skills – technical savvy about AI, plus domain knowledge and soft skills like communication and strategy.
For workers, this is encouraging: rather than being replaced, many can transition or upscale into these new positions. A customer support rep might evolve into a conversation designer who teaches AI how to talk to customers. A project manager might become a human-AI team coordinator. The workforce of the future will likely involve humans and AI agents working side by side, and these new job categories are essentially the interface roles that make that partnership effective. Companies investing in training their people for these roles – and individuals proactively developing these skills – will be at an advantage. In summary, agentic AI is not just eliminating old jobs; it’s actively inventing new ones, and those roles are crucial to unlocking AI’s full potential in enterprise and society.