How To Attract And Retain Top AI Talent

As demand for artificial intelligence talent continues to outpace supply, companies are having to rethink how they build and manage teams. Hiring alone isn’t enough. To stay competitive, businesses also need thoughtful strategies for retaining skilled AI professionals and organizing their teams to support long-term growth.

Members of Forbes Business Council are navigating these challenges across a wide range of industries and business functions. Read on to learn how they’re attracting, retaining and organizing teams at scale as competition for AI talent remains intense.

1. Get Back To Basics Before Scaling AI

Demand for AI expertise in the next three years will outstrip supply, and the one key differentiator is how strategic you are about using AI. Before you drive change, go back to basics. Be clear on your purpose for change, make team clarity your priority, and involve those in the trenches so they are determined to change. AI will not fix antiquated systems. Create the right systems for AI to work for you. - Loubna Noureddin, Mind Market

2. Identify Which Skills You Need

We recommend unlocking this by knowing which AI skills you need and planning for them. Train teams on foundations, and hire specialists for modeling and engineering early. Additionally, enable applied AI through cross-functional squads, upskill leaders on strategy, mix hiring and advisors for governance, and grow learning through community. - Neelima Misra, DaasTek

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3. Search Globally For AI Talent

Our focus on AI talent has been global. To find the tiger’s cub, you have to enter the den. Attending AI meetings in our business-related space was essential to ensuring we are able to expand with talented individuals who can also communicate well with our multidisciplinary teams. - Richard Pestell, Stroma Genesis

4. Use Compensation And Incentives Strategically

We try to find out what our potential hires don’t like about their current or previous organization and see if we can do better to keep them happy. Compensation and incentives often play a major role here. That’s why we’ve started increasing incentives directly tied to team members’ KPIs. - Andy Austin, Adsora LLC

5. Lead With Mission, Autonomy And Impact

We focus on the mission and leverage. Top AI talent wants meaningful problems, clean data and autonomy more than perks. We organize small, empowered teams with clear outcomes, strong infrastructure and visible impact so individuals see how their work moves the business, not just models or code. - Austin Schutte, Anew Solutions

6. Design AI Roles Around Business Impact

One effective approach is designing AI roles around impact, not just titles. Top talent wants autonomy and visible outcomes. We focus on small, empowered teams aligned to clear commercial objectives with direct access to leadership. Retention improves when AI specialists see their work influencing real strategy, not sitting in isolated innovation labs. - Cory Hodkinson, Beyond Vision Ltd.

7. Hire For Potential And Curiosity

Hire for potential and curiosity, not perfect résumés. AI talent is scarce because everyone’s chasing the same profiles. We look for people who ask great questions and learn fast, then train them internally. This builds loyalty. They grow with us instead of job-hopping for higher offers. It also scales better because you’re building a team that fits your culture and solves your problems. - Sabeer Nelliparamban, Tyler Petroleum Inc.

8. Build A Culture Of Learning And Problem-Solving

One way to attract and retain AI talent is to build a culture where learning and problem-solving are core values. People stay when they grow in ability and influence. At BAMS, we emphasize teamwork, purpose and continuous improvement so employees see impact and career development. This helps us to organize teams at scale. - Dimitri Akhrin, BAMS.COM

9. Adopt A Growth-Oriented Talent Mindset

Companies that are attracting top talent are not only giving them ownership but also enabling them to be authentic in their work. The companies I see moving the needle are looking at their teams with a growth-oriented, yet individual, mindset, so team members feel energized by what they are doing and what they can teach others. - Brooke Greenwald, Cornerstone Communications Ltd.

10. Organize Teams Around Real Business Problems

At Percipere, we attract and retain AI talent by organizing teams around real business problems. Our engineers work closely with domain experts, see their work create a visible impact, and ship fast. As part of our business culture, we encourage experimentation, continuous learning and rotation across use cases, which keeps teams motivated while also allowing us to scale AI capabilities sustainably. - Prathamesh Bhingarde, Percipere

11. Provide Real Ownership And High Standards

We attract and retain talent by giving people real ownership and high standards. Great people want to win. They want to be challenged, they want to be trusted, and they want to feel like their work matters. We also organize teams around outcomes, not titles. I’m not interested in hiring someone just to say we have AI talent. I want people who can solve real problems and drive measurable results. - Brad Ritti, Innovated Studios

12. Align Roles With Employees’ Personal Priorities

One way we attract and retain AI talent at scale is by focusing on each employee’s personal priorities. Everyone is motivated by different things, not just money. By understanding and supporting what truly matters to them, we build loyalty and engagement. This also encourages our team to refer talented friends as we grow. - Jekaterina Beljankova, WALLACE s.r.o

13. Offer Freedom Within Clear Ethical Guidelines

Top candidates are more motivated by the opportunity to work with inspired, capable peers to solve complex and meaningful problems than by the prospect of low-level bureaucracy to sweep things up. In the AI field, beyond the opportunity for career growth, the right ethical guidelines and very few constraints allow teams to work quickly and freely. Disorder is one of the biggest demotivators. - Baruch Labunski, Rank Secure

14. Build Systems That Let Talent Scale

We don’t compete for AI talent by hiring more specialists—we compete by building smarter systems. Using a 6-ER governance lens, we focus on decision clarity, reusable architectures and learning loops so average teams can produce exceptional outcomes. Talent scales when systems do, not when headcount grows. - Kerry Huang

15. Organize Teams Around Judgment And Autonomy

We organize teams around judgment, not tools. AI talent stays engaged when they’re trusted to make decisions, not just execute prompts. Clear ownership, defined problem domains and autonomy matter more than perks. People don’t want to be AI operators. Instead, they want to be problem-solvers whose thinking compounds with technology. - Tracewell (Trace) Gordon, TruLata

16. Recruit Proven Teams, Not Just Individuals

At Customers Bank, we attract talent by recruiting proven teams, not acquiring institutions. This people-first strategy accelerates capability, reduces integration risk and preserves the client experience. Clarity of purpose, speed to impact and a culture that supports teams with the right technology and operations have been powerful differentiators in attracting and retaining top talent at scale. - Sam Sidhu, Customers Bank

17. Partner With Universities And Research Institutions

We stopped waiting for AI talent to be “finished.” Instead, we go to the source by partnering with universities and research institutions. Through AI residencies and funded academic projects, we build relationships early and give talent real exposure to our work. It puts us ahead of the market and creates a pipeline before competition even starts. - Ahva Sadeghi, Symba

18. Offer Strategic Influence

We retain talent by offering influence as a perk. In many firms, AI is just a support function. At our scale, we elevate engineers to strategic partners. We organize cross-functional pods where tech talent sits directly with country heads to design our future products. We find that the strongest retention tool is respect. Give employees a seat at the table to drive the business, not just support it. - Henry Fan, Globevisa Group

19. Coordinate Teams Around Systems And Workflows

In our factory, we attract and retain AI talent by organizing teams around systems, not roles. We combine human expertise with automation and AI-driven workflows, allowing teams to focus on higher-value tasks. Clear processes, measurable outputs and scalable systems enable efficiency without overextending talent. - Onahira Rivas, Florida’s Cotton Clouds

20. Take An Intentional Approach To Upskilling

We build the supply ourselves most of the time. AI is the Wild, Wild West, and most experts are inflating their skills. Take an intentional approach to upskilling your team—see who has the desire and talent to do more AI tasks. When AI becomes “the way we do it here,” more and more people will adopt it at some level. Just like Excel or PowerPoint, everyone will need a working knowledge of AI to help an organization succeed. - Joe Crandall, Greencastle Associates Consulting.