LinkedIn to launch dedicated AI labour marketplace

LinkedIn is making a quiet but significant move into the booming AI training industry, with plans to launch a dedicated “AI labour marketplace”.

The platform is currently conducting early tests for a platform that connects human experts with AI developers.

To streamline the process, LinkedIn has introduced a new feature allowing users to receive instant notifications when new AI training opportunities are posted.

The initiative will offer gig workers the opportunity to earn up to $150 (£120) per hour by refining AI chatbots.

The “trainers” will be tasked with rating machine-generated answers and testing the logic of systems across various sectors, including coding, nursing, and finance.

A LinkedIn spokesperson noted that AI training has become one of the fastest-growing job sectors in the United States. “We are in the early stages of testing this marketplace to meet the rising demand for human-led AI refinement,” the spokesperson confirmed.

Currently, the platform already features over a dozen public listings for these specialised roles. The pay structure reflects the level of expertise required:

Senior software engineers: Up to $150 per hour.

Finance and Excel experts: Approximately $100 per hour.

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Nursing professionals: Rates comparable to finance experts.

Linguists (Germanic and Nordic): Up to $100 per hour.

Security testers: Between $40 and $50 per hour.

LinkedIn’s entry into this space will place it in direct competition with specialist startups that have seen their valuations skyrocket during the current AI gold rush. These firms act as intermediaries for “frontier” labs such as OpenAI and Anthropic.

The scale of the market is immense. Mercor, a prominent rival, recently saw its valuation quintuple to $10 billion within a year. Similarly, Surge AI, the parent company of the Data Annotation marketplace, is reportedly valued at $24 billion.

However, the rapid expansion of the AI training sector has not been without controversy. The reliance on vast “armies” of remote contributors has led to significant security lapses.

LinkedIn is hoping that its established reputation for security and verified identities will give it an edge in an increasingly turbulent market.

Ngozi Ekugo

Ngozi Ekugo is a Senior Correspondent at BusinessDay. She holds a Masters in management from the University of Lagos, an undergraduate from University of Lagos, and is in an alumni of Queen's College. Shes currently an associate member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM). She has a brief experience at Goldman sachs, London in its Human Capital Management division. She is interested in human capital development and is leveraging her varied experience across sectors to report labour and global mobility trends for stakeholders to make informed decisions.