AI Talent Demand Doubled in Mexico During 2025: PwC

Mexico's labor market is entering a new phase of AI adoption, with companies increasingly translating experimentation into workforce strategies centered on productivity, technical capabilities, and skills transformation, reports PwC.

PwC’s 2026 AI Jobs Barometer shows that demand for AI-related talent in Mexico doubled during 2025. Job postings requiring AI skills reached approximately 68,000, including nearly 35,000 new openings, compared with 33,000 new AI-related vacancies recorded in 2024. As a result, AI-related positions represented 1.7% of all job postings in Mexico during 2025, signaling broader integration of AI capabilities across the country's workforce.

Findings follow the trend of organizations moving beyond pilot initiatives toward operational deployment, creating demand not only for professionals capable of developing AI technologies but also for employees who can integrate AI into everyday business processes.

"Mexico has experienced greater AI adoption across the workforce over the last year," says Claudia Zarco, Managing Director of Workforce Transformation, PwC Mexico. "The labor market is evolving along two paths: companies are looking for people who can use AI in their daily work, while others are investing in professionals with advanced technical capabilities."

Two AI Talent Markets Are Emerging

According to PwC’s Barometer, Mexico's AI labor market is developing around two distinct categories of roles. The first consists of AI user roles, where professionals employ AI applications to automate routine activities and improve operational performance. These positions require AI literacy and practical application skills rather than advanced technical expertise.

The second category includes AI developer roles, which involve designing, training, deploying, and maintaining AI models and require specialized technical knowledge.

User-focused positions continue to account for most AI hiring activity. During 2025, organizations added about 32,300 AI user positions, reflecting growing adoption across operational functions.

Developer positions remain smaller in absolute volume but expanded rapidly. PwC reports that these roles increased by about 2,200 positions during 2025, representing 59.5% growth compared with the previous year. The report indicates that this dual expansion reflects simultaneous investment in AI adoption across business functions and in the technical capabilities required to build internal AI solutions.

Technology Sector Leads in AI Implementation

Although AI-related hiring increased across every industry analyzed by PwC, most sectors still allocate less than 1% of their total job postings to AI-specific capabilities. The Technology, Media, and Telecommunications (TMT) sector remains the country's leading AI-intensive industry. According to PwC, 11.3% of AI developer roles are concentrated within TMT, the highest proportion among all sectors included in the study.

PwC suggests that this concentration indicates companies within the sector are investing not only in deploying AI into operational workflows but also in developing internal capabilities to design, train, and implement proprietary AI models.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Markets sector demonstrates a different adoption pattern. About 94.5% of its AI-related vacancies correspond to AI user roles, indicating broader operational adoption rather than internal AI development.

These differences highlight how AI maturity varies across industries, with technology companies focusing on technical infrastructure while consumer-facing organizations prioritize workforce productivity through AI-enabled processes.

AI is Accelerating Workforce Skills Transformation

Beyond hiring activity, the report identifies significant changes in workforce skill requirements. PwC found a 0.27 positive correlation between AI exposure and the pace of skills transformation between 2021 and 2025. Occupations with greater AI exposure recorded an average net skills change score of 2.74, compared with 1.59 among occupations with lower AI exposure.

According to the report, these findings indicate that AI is changing not only which roles organizations recruit but also the capabilities employees are expected to possess. "The transformation of skills is becoming a competitive advantage across roles exposed to AI," says Zarco. "Organizations in Mexico that anticipate these changes and redesign roles while developing workforce capabilities around critical business processes and strategic objectives will be better positioned to respond to evolving market demands."

Based on the report's findings, PwC outlines five priorities for organizations seeking to expand AI adoption:

1. Companies should prioritize AI use cases capable of generating measurable improvements in operational efficiency, revenue generation, or customer experience.
2. Organizations should integrate AI into workforce development strategies by investing in reskilling, upskilling, and continuous learning aligned with critical business processes.
3. PwC recommends adopting industry-specific transformation strategies, recognizing that AI maturity differs substantially across sectors.
4. Companies should treat workforce skills transformation as a strategic capability by redesigning roles before changing business requirements create talent shortages.
5. Organizations should establish scalable AI operating models supported by governance frameworks, data management practices, and technology platforms capable of enabling enterprise-wide implementation.