Entry level AI jobs are a measured slice of the live catalogue: 7,673 internship postings and 9,908 junior postings, 0.1% of the 145,864 live postings where seniority is stated at all. That is the honest denominator; the rest of this page reads it apart by category, degree requirement, Level, and location.
The number this article rests on: 17,581 internship or junior postings out of 145,864 live postings with a known seniority, 0.1%. Measured October 2026.
A beginner searching this phrase is really asking four separate questions: how many postings will actually consider someone starting out, which parts of the field hire them most, whether a degree gets requested along the way, and where AI shows up as a light, learnable tool rather than the whole job. Each gets its own section below, built from the same live catalogue rather than four repeats of the same headline count.
Seniority itself is read from the words in the posting, not guessed from the title: a listing has to say intern, entry level, junior, or an equivalent phrase to be counted here. 23,035 postings say nothing about seniority at all and are excluded from the share above rather than assumed either way, which is why the denominator is 145,864, not the full 168,899.
How many AI job postings accept a beginner?
17,581 of 145,864 postings with a stated seniority, 0.1%, are marked internship or junior. Internships alone account for 7,673, and junior roles for 9,908, so the two groups are close enough in size that neither one dominates the beginner path on its own. Measured October 2026.
That leaves the majority of postings aimed at more senior hires, which is worth saying plainly rather than around: most live AI-related work is not written for a first job. The categories below narrow that gap by showing where the entry-level share actually concentrates.
That majority is not evidence against trying; it is evidence for being selective about where to look. A beginner who treats every live posting as an equally likely target will spend most of their search reading requirements written for someone with years of experience. The remaining sections narrow the search to where a first job is actually being offered, rather than leaving that work to the applicant.
Which categories hire the most entry-level candidates?
Ranked by the number of internship and junior postings inside each category, among those with at least 100 live jobs: software engineering (2,384 entry-level postings), sales (1,043 entry-level postings), operations (1,003 entry-level postings), data (520 entry-level postings), and finance (420 entry-level postings). Measured October 2026.
- Software Engineering: 2,384 internship or junior postings out of 37,290 live in the category.
- Sales: 1,043 internship or junior postings out of 16,988 live in the category.
- Operations: 1,003 internship or junior postings out of 10,723 live in the category.
- Data: 520 internship or junior postings out of 5,983 live in the category.
- Finance: 420 internship or junior postings out of 4,621 live in the category.
Two of the categories most worth a direct look for a beginner sit outside engineering entirely: customer support and sales both carry real entry-level counts, evidence that a first AI-related job does not require writing code. The unfiltered ranking, computed the same way across every category regardless of sample size, is other, software engineering, and sales, a useful second cut when a category's live count is too small to reach the 100-job threshold above but still worth naming.
Reading these two rankings together matters more than either alone: a category can carry a large raw count of entry-level postings while still being a small share of its own listings, or the reverse. Neither ranking claims a category is easy to break into, only that it is where the beginner postings are concentrated today.
The practical takeaway is to start a search inside these named categories rather than across the whole catalogue at once. A beginner scanning every live posting indiscriminately competes against every seniority level at once; narrowing to the categories above at least puts the search inside the part of the catalogue where entry-level hiring is demonstrably happening.
Do entry-level AI jobs require a degree?
Often, but not universally. 59,194 of 168,899 live AI-related postings, 35.0%, name a bachelor's, master's, or PhD anywhere in the text. That figure spans every seniority level, not entry-level postings alone, since this catalogue does not cross-tabulate degree mentions against seniority. Measured October 2026.
Read plainly, that means roughly 35.0% of the whole live catalogue asks for a credential and the rest does not, so a beginner without a degree is not ruled out of most of the field on that basis alone. What a specific internship or junior posting asks for still has to be read individually; a catalogue-wide share describes the field, not any one listing's requirement.
Degree mentions and seniority are two separate filters on the same postings, and a beginner should expect to check both on any specific listing rather than assume the site-wide degree share applies evenly to entry-level roles specifically.
Treat the catalogue-wide share as a planning number, not a per-listing guarantee. A beginner deciding whether to apply without a degree is better served reading the specific posting's requirements than extrapolating from a figure that covers postings at every seniority level, from internship through senior leadership, in one average.
Which Level should a beginner target?
Little AI (AI Level 1), where AI is a light or occasional part of the job rather than the whole role, is the natural starting point: 142,305 of 168,899 live postings sit at that Level, a substantial share of the catalogue that does not assume deep AI expertise walking in. Measured October 2026.
That does not mean Little AI is the only option. Some entry-level and internship postings sit at higher Levels, particularly inside software engineering and data categories where a junior title still means working with AI tools directly rather than just working near them. Level is a measure of how central AI is to the daily work, not a measure of seniority, so the two should be checked separately on any given posting rather than assumed to move together.
Little AI is also the broadest on-ramp precisely because it does not require prior AI-specific experience: customer support and sales postings at this Level typically ask for the underlying job skill first, with AI tools layered on top rather than the reverse.
Level and seniority answer different questions, which is why they are kept apart in this catalogue rather than merged into one rating. A candidate can be a beginner at Little AI, using AI as an occasional tool inside a familiar job, or a beginner at a higher Level, learning AI tools and the underlying job at the same time. Checking a specific posting's Level alongside its stated seniority gives a clearer read than either figure alone.
Is it possible to start in AI without a technical background?
Yes, measurably. 123,894 of 168,899 live postings, 73.4%, sit outside software engineering, data, research, and security, meaning the daily work does not center on writing code or building models even though the role still touches AI tools directly. Measured October 2026.
Combined with the 16.4% of all live postings marked remote, a beginner without a computer-science background has two separate paths worth checking before ruling AI-related work out: a non-technical category where AI is a tool inside a familiar job, and a remote listing that does not require relocating first. Neither figure is specific to entry-level postings alone, so the honest reading is that the wider catalogue leaves room for both paths, not a guarantee that any single beginner posting offers them together.
The entry-level data jobs question tracks one specific category's beginner postings in more depth than the catalogue-wide figures here can, and is a reasonable next stop for a candidate who has narrowed their search to data-related work specifically. Students still in school can start from the AI internships guide, which counts internship postings on their own. The open postings are listed on the new grad AI jobs page and the AI internships page.
The jobs right now
Live internship and junior postings, generated from the catalogue and not written by hand, newest first.
