How the index is built

Source. Publicly available data: job posts published between 2025-12-01 and 2026-11-04, in the categories where software and AI builds are posted (web, mobile and e-commerce development, AI and machine learning, AI apps and integration, scripts, DevOps, data, and a few marketing and support categories where automation work appears).

Which posts count. Posts whose title names an AI build: AI, LLMs, agents, chatbots, RAG, voice agents, n8n, Make, Zapier, automation and similar. Posts that only mention AI in passing, such as AI video editing or voice recording for training data, sit in other categories and are not read.

Duplicates. Clients often repost the same job. Posts with the same title and the same budget are counted once.

Tagging. Each post is tagged with a use case and, where its title names one, an industry, using ordered keyword rules (v0 keyword rules). A model-based classifier that also reads the description is being built to replace them.

Costs. Ranges combine two kinds of post, each between $50 and $250,000. Fixed-price posts count at the budget the buyer stated. Hourly posts have no stated total, so we estimate one: the midpoint of the posted rate, times the expected length, times assumed hours. Hourly posts with no rate or no expected length are left out of ranges.

Hourly assumptions. Length: under 1 month counts as 0.5 months, 1 to 3 months as 2, 3 to 6 months as 4.5, and over 6 months as 6. Hours: posts asking for more than 30 hours a week count as 160 hours a month, and all others as 80. These are our assumptions, not figures from the posts, and they treat the work as running its full length, so read hourly estimates as the upper side of the market.

Ranges. The band is the 25th to 75th percentile; the marker is the median; the top-10% figure is the 90th percentile. A page needs at least 10 priced posts, and pages with fewer than 15 say so.

What we suppress. A table figure needs at least 5 posts behind it, buyer geography needs 30, and company size needs 20 posts that state it. Pages under 15 priced posts stay out of search indexes.

Countries. Country means the buyer's stated location, not where the work is done. A country needs 15 priced posts for a page and 30 to be ranked or sent to search. Population and GDP per person are the latest World Bank figures. Two US territories dominated by single accounts are left out, and countries where one account makes up over a quarter of posts keep a page but are not ranked.

Industries. A post takes its industry from the title where that names a sector, otherwise from the buyer's stated industry. About 45% of posts can be placed. Industries need 30 priced posts to be ranked or sent to search, and one dominated by a single account is not ranked.

Implementation and transformation. These pages read every category, because advisory work is often posted outside the build categories, and the title must name AI itself. Titles were matched by keyword and spot-checked by hand, and creative, website and translation posts were removed. The figures price one hire, not a full company program, and transformation rests on a small sample.

Trends. Collection widened in August 2026, so we do not report growth rates yet. Comparing early and late 2026 would mostly measure the change in collection, not the market.

Who publishes this. The index is published by VIZIO AI, which builds AI systems, so it has a commercial interest in this market. The numbers come from the method above, not from its work.

What the numbers are not. A budget in a job post is the buyer's opening position, and an hourly estimate is a calculation, not a quote. Final contract prices can differ, and agencies building production systems usually price above the freelance middle of the market.