The number of tech workers across the United States and Canada who can actually build with artificial intelligence hit 751,000 as of June 2026 — a 45% jump in a single year. Nearly four in ten of the American ones sit in just four metro areas.
That is the headline finding of CBRE's 13th annual Scoring Tech Talent report, which analyzes 75 markets across the U.S. and Canada. It puts a number on what the industry has felt anecdotally for two years: AI hiring is not lifting the tech labor market evenly. It is lifting a handful of places, sharply, while the rest treads water.
“There's no denying that AI is reshaping the tech industry and job growth in general,” said Colin Yasukochi, executive director of CBRE's Tech Insights Center in San Francisco. “Growth of AI jobs in the U.S. far outpaced the broader tech-talent category, which expanded by 1.8% last year even as the tech industry cut some non-AI jobs. Markets adding AI jobs are further cementing their status as tech talent capitals.”
Four metros, 37% of the talent
The San Francisco Bay Area remains the single largest concentration of AI employment in North America, with 98,699 AI-skilled workers. New York Metro follows at 67,949, then Seattle at 41,591 and Washington, D.C. at 33,515. Together those four markets hold 37% of all U.S. AI jobs.
Toronto ranks fifth overall at 33,419, followed by Dallas-Fort Worth (29,840), Los Angeles and Orange County (28,600) and Boston (27,494). Canada's clustering is even tighter: Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver together account for 60% of the country's AI jobs.
The Bay Area and New York each added more than 20,000 AI jobs since mid-2025, through a mix of net new hiring and the reclassification of existing roles. Atlanta, Philadelphia and Chicago posted large percentage gains on smaller bases.
Data scientist was the fastest-growing AI occupation over the past year, adding 29,000 jobs, followed by computer and information systems manager at 24,600 — a signal that firms are hiring not just model builders but the managers to run them. And demand is still accelerating: AI roles made up 31% of U.S. tech-talent job listings in June 2026, up from 11% in 2022. In the Bay Area, AI's share of postings climbed to 57% from 20%.
New York takes the headcount crown
New York City now has 394,300 tech-talent workers, overtaking the San Francisco Bay Area's 375,730 to become North America's largest tech workforce by raw headcount for the first time in the report's 13-year history. New York added 30,640 tech workers between 2022 and 2025; the Bay Area shed 23,900.
The mechanism matters more than the milestone. New York's tech workforce is spread across industries — banking, media, health, retail — while 61% of Bay Area tech talent works directly for high-tech firms, leaving it exposed to the sector's layoff cycles. Financial services, insurance and real estate collectively added 90,530 tech jobs since 2022 while the high-tech sector itself cut 21,262. New York and Dallas-Fort Worth now tie for the highest concentration of AI-specialty talent within financial services, at 20% each, ahead of Toronto at 19%.
“There will be all different types of jobs, and I think we will be hiring more AI people and fewer bankers in certain categories,” JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon said in a Bloomberg Television interview earlier this year.
San Francisco still tops CBRE's weighted index — which blends 13 metrics including talent concentration, pipeline and R&D investment — with a score of 81.98, ahead of Seattle (74.37), Toronto (72.73), New York Metro (70.38), Austin (64.26) and Washington (62.95).
Analysis
The 45% figure is easy to read as a boom story. It is better read as a sorting story.
AI-skilled headcount grew 25 times faster than the tech workforce as a whole. That gap is the signature of a technology transition, not a hiring cycle: employers are not adding tech workers so much as swapping the composition of the ones they have. CBRE counts role conversions alongside net new jobs, meaning a meaningful slice of that 751,000 is existing engineers who retooled.
That has a price attached. Tech wages run 15% above the U.S. average, with Bay Area tech talent averaging $211,048 annually, Seattle $190,050 and Boston $141,703 — against $70,185 in Edmonton. For a 500-person company in 60,000 square feet, annual labor and real estate costs range from $36.1 million in Quebec City to $90.6 million in the Bay Area. Geographic arbitrage has rarely been worth more.
It is reshaping real estate too. AI companies have accounted for 30% of San Francisco leasing activity — roughly 10 million square feet — since 2023, with Manhattan (4.1 million sq. ft.), Boston (2.6 million) and Seattle (1.9 million) trailing.
“Job growth tied to AI will influence most commercial real estate sectors, from offices to data centers to multifamily,” said John Morris, CBRE Group President of Advisory Leasing in the U.S. and Canada. “Inevitably, some jobs will be eliminated over time as AI takes on more routine tasks. But CBRE's view is that AI will change job composition more than it will overall job count.”
Workers are less sanguine. A Pew Research Center survey released the same week found 55% of Americans under 30 are now more concerned than excited about AI, and 73% expect it to mean fewer jobs within two decades, up from 61% two years ago.
What to watch
Three things. First, whether the conversion rate holds: if most of 2027's growth again comes from reclassified workers rather than new entrants, the AI talent shortage is a training problem, not a supply problem. Second, whether non-tech sectors keep hiring — the 90,530 tech jobs added by finance, insurance and real estate since 2022 are what made New York's reversal possible, and a banking pullback would flip it back. Third, whether the second tier converts postings into payroll. Nashville jumped six spots to No. 33 this year, Montreal four to No. 11 and Pittsburgh three to No. 28, all on cost advantages. If AI hiring stays locked into four metros through 2027, that 37% becomes a structural feature of the American economy rather than a snapshot of one unusually fast year.
“Growth of AI jobs in the U.S. far outpaced the broader tech-talent category, which expanded by 1.8% last year even as the tech industry cut some non-AI jobs.”— Colin Yasukochi, Executive Director, CBRE Tech Insights Center