Pity OpenAI’s HR department. Since the start of the year the maker of ChatGPT has lost about a dozen top researchers. The biggest name was Ilya Sutskever, a co-founder responsible for many of the startup’s big breakthroughs, who announced his resignation on May 14th.

Since the launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, the market for AI labour has been transformed. Rapid advances in machine learning and the potential for a “ platform shift” has changed the types of skills employers are demanding and the places where those who possess them are going.

Start with the skills. Goliaths such as Microsoft and Google may be laying off non-engineers but they are seeking out star researchers who can understand, and build, cutting-edge models. Companies covet such superstars because they can produce breakthroughs that, say, dramatically increase the efficiency of an AI system or make it less prone to make things up.

More intriguing is how generative AI has changed the talent market further down the ladder. According to data from Indeed, a job-listing website, one in 40 vacancies for software developers in America mentions skills related to “generative” AI, the sort that makes ChatGPT so humanlike. Amit Bhatia, co-founder of a research firm, says that before ChatGPT a medium-sized tech firm might employ a handful of AI engineers who built small models to do things such as analyse the sentiments of customers’ emails. Today generative models can do a much better job than small, in-house efforts.

Different types of skills are also in demand. Kelsey Szot, a co-founder of an AI startup, points to individuals who quickly learn how to use AI tools and can stitch them together to build something new and impressive. Unlike the stuffy PhDs, they come up with ideas that are often not academically elegant. But, says Ms Szot, they will solve a problem on a tight deadline. In the ultra-competitive world of AI startups, that is invaluable.

As a result of all this demand, talent flows are shifting. For years engineers flocked to the big-tech. Over the nine months since ChatGPT was released, though, the net flow of AI workers to the giants reversed to an average monthly outflow.

Where is the AI talent going instead? One popular destination is Nvidia, a chipmaker whose “graphics-processing units” are powering the AI boom and whose ambitions extend beyond hardware to software and applications. Others joined more mature startups, such as Databricks and OpenAI. But one in seven of the big-tech leavers went to startups in “stealth” mode, which have not unveiled products or announced plans.

One motivation for going to a smaller startup may be financial. For an AI wizard the potential rewards from owning a stake in a successful firm could easily outweigh the salary and stock options offered by a tech juggernaut. Another motive is autonomy. There is just too much brand risk in big companies to ever launch anything fun.

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