Part-time AI jobs are mostly remote contractor tasks, such as rating chatbot answers, comparing AI outputs and writing test prompts. Some need no coding, and most platforms ask you to pass an assessment first. The work is project-based, so plan it as extra income. Read each company's own pay and requirements page, then apply to a few.
Pay lines and requirements below come from each company's own page, read on October 7, 2026. They change, so confirm them on the page before you apply. If you would rather build income you own, see our guide to ten ways to make money with AI.
| At a glance | |
|---|---|
| Type of work | Independent contractor, paid per task or project, usually remote |
| How it starts | An assessment or screening, plus an identity check |
| How you are paid | DataAnnotation by PayPal on request; Outlier weekly; Mindrift on the 5th and 20th of each month |
| Hours | No minimum hours at DataAnnotation, Outlier or Mindrift |
| What you need | No AI background at the entry level; each company states its own education or skill bar (see the table below) |
| Tax | Contractor income carries 15.3% self-employment tax, per the IRS |
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Get the free ebookWhat are part-time AI jobs?
Part-time AI jobs are flexible, mostly remote roles where you spend a few hours at a time helping build or check AI systems. Most are contractor positions paid per task or per project, so you choose when to work instead of following a fixed schedule. The most open door for people with no AI background is AI training: work that improves a model by rating its answers, comparing outputs and writing test prompts. A note on the term. In this guide, "AI training" means helping train AI models. It does not mean teaching a team how to use AI at work, which is the business idea covered in our AI business ideas guide. Both are real ways to earn, but they are different jobs.
Part-time AI work comes in three families:
- AI training and evaluation. Rating chatbot answers, comparing outputs, flagging factual errors, testing generated images, writing prompts. This is where the companies below say beginners can start.
- Roles around AI. Search and media evaluation, internet safety evaluation, content review, product testing and support at AI companies. TELUS Digital, for example, lists several such roles as part time and remote.
- Technical roles. Engineers and data scientists. These ask for a degree and are usually full-time, so this guide covers them only briefly in the section on other roles.
This guide focuses on the first family, the one you can start without an AI career behind you.
What do AI training jobs involve day to day?
AI training jobs involve reading what an AI model produced and judging it against clear instructions. You might check whether a chatbot reply is accurate, decide which of two answers is better, point out a factual error, or write a hard question that tests a model. The work is done in a browser, at your own pace, in sessions as short or as long as you choose. Every task comes with written instructions, and what the companies reward is careful reading, clear writing and sound judgment, not technical skill. A typical session is simple: you open a task, read the instruction, review two chatbot answers, choose the better one and write two sentences on why. Then you open the next task. Across the four companies below, that is the common thread.
The companies describe the work like this:
- DataAnnotation says its workers evaluate chatbot responses for accuracy, compare AI outputs, flag factual errors, test AI-generated images, write challenging prompts or review code for errors. Coding tasks are a separate track.
- Outlier lists three kinds of work: writing a challenging prompt, creating grading rubrics, and rating and ranking answers. Outlier says it is operated by Scale AI.
- Mindrift splits its tasks into "all-access" tasks, which have no education, experience or skill requirements, and specialized projects that need deep knowledge of a field.
- TELUS Digital lists roles such as Evaluator, Personalized Internet Assessor, Online Data Analyst, Media Search Analyst and Internet Safety Evaluator. On October 7, 2026, its AI Community category showed 72 openings, and every listing on the first page was marked Part time and Remote.
Do you need experience or a degree to start?
You do not need AI experience to start in AI training, but each company sets its own bar for education or skills. Outlier's page says "No AI experience needed." DataAnnotation says no coding experience is required for its general projects, and asks for a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience plus strong writing and critical thinking skills. Mindrift has all-access tasks with no education, experience or skill requirements, and specialized projects that usually need a relevant degree. TELUS Digital runs a hiring process with assessments and interviews. That is why this guide says "no experience" and not "no requirements": you can begin without an AI background, and each company then checks writing, reasoning and, for some tracks, education before it opens work to you. The table shows each company's own wording.
| Company | AI or coding background | Education or skill bar the company states |
|---|---|---|
| DataAnnotation | No coding experience required for general projects | "Bachelor's degree or equivalent experience," strong writing and critical thinking |
| Outlier | "No AI experience needed" | Undergraduate-level expertise as the minimum; English communication skills; valid ID, mobile phone, resume and LinkedIn profile |
| Mindrift | None for all-access tasks | No requirements for all-access tasks; specialized projects usually ask for a relevant degree |
| TELUS Digital | Varies by role | Application form, role-specific assessments, multiple interviews, then final hiring steps |
Read on each company's own page, October 7, 2026.
Ideal for you if you read carefully, write clearly in English and can follow detailed instructions. That profile fits most of the entry-level work above.
How much do part-time AI jobs pay?
Pay depends on the company, the track you qualify for and the project, and only some companies publish an hourly figure. DataAnnotation does. Its answer to "How much will I get paid?" lists rates starting at $25 to $50+ per hour for general projects, $20+ for multilingual projects and $40 to $150+ for coding projects. Those are starting rates, and the page adds that higher rates are possible based on performance. Outlier, Mindrift and TELUS Digital do not publish an hourly rate on the pages we read. They describe how they pay instead. Use the numbers to compare tracks, since a rate that starts at one level depends on your assessment results and on the projects open to you.
| Company | What the page says about pay | Payment schedule |
|---|---|---|
| DataAnnotation | Starting at $25-$50+/hour (general), $20+ (multilingual), $40-$150+ (coding) | PayPal; deposits arrive within a few days after you request them |
| Outlier | "Competitive pay + quality-based rewards"; no hourly rate published | Paid weekly |
| Mindrift | Set at the project level, depending on scope, complexity and expertise; no hourly rate published | Twice a month, on the 5th and 20th, via Payoneer or Tipalti |
| TELUS Digital | No pay amount shown on the listings page | Not stated on the page |
Where a company does not publish a rate, the project description or your offer is where the number lives.
What pay means for your taxes. As an independent contractor you are self-employed. The IRS says the self-employment tax rate is 15.3%, made up of 12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare, and that you file Schedule SE if your net earnings from self-employment were $400 or more. The IRS page was last reviewed on June 27, 2026. Setting aside part of each payout as you go makes tax season simpler.
How many hours can you work, and how steady is the work?
You can work as many or as few hours as you like, and the work arrives in projects. DataAnnotation says it has no minimum hours or daily login requirements. Outlier says it has no minimum hour requirements and that you choose when, where and how much you contribute. Mindrift says you can open its platform and complete tasks whenever you like, with no fixed weekly hours. That flexibility is the main reason people choose task work: it fits around a job, classes or family, and you can begin with an hour or two in a week and grow from there if you like the work. Choose your hours first, then pick the projects that fit them.
The other half of the picture is that the amount of work follows demand. DataAnnotation says that if you qualify for its long-running projects and show high-quality work, work will be available to you. Mindrift says task availability is directly related to the state of the Generative AI industry, and that when a project ends there can be a period with limited or no tasks. So the practical way to use this work is as a flexible extra income stream, with your main income elsewhere, and to sign up with more than one platform so a quiet week on one does not stop you.
Ideal for you if you want paid work you can fit into free hours and you are comfortable with income that varies from week to week.
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Get the free ebookHow do you apply and start, step by step?
You apply by choosing a track, passing a short assessment and verifying your identity; then you pick projects and start. Plan an evening for the first application, with your documents and a quiet hour for the assessment. The order below follows what the companies describe, and TELUS Digital adds interviews, so allow more time there. DataAnnotation says approval typically arrives within a few days after you complete the assessment, and Outlier says its general onboarding typically takes 30 to 90 minutes, followed by onboarding for each project. Here are the six steps in order:
- Choose a track. General work (evaluating chatbot answers) is the entry point. Coding, STEM and professional tracks ask for more background and pay differently.
- Gather your documents. Outlier asks for a valid ID and mobile phone from your country of residence, a current resume and a LinkedIn profile that shows your education and work.
- Take the assessment with time and focus. DataAnnotation says most Starter Assessments take about an hour and that you can take the assessment only once, so pick a quiet moment and read each instruction twice.
- Verify your identity. DataAnnotation uses Persona for identity verification. Outlier asks for ID at sign-up. TELUS Digital lists a hiring process with assessments and multiple interviews before you are hired. DataAnnotation states: "We will never ask for money from you for anything."
- Pick projects and start. Open tasks that match your track, follow each project's instructions and aim for quality: both DataAnnotation and Outlier tie future work or rewards to the quality of what you submit.
- Track your hours and set aside tax. Record what you were paid and when, and move a share of each payout into a separate account for self-employment tax.
Apply to two or three platforms in your first week, since each has its own assessment and opens work on its own schedule.
How do you verify an online AI job before you apply?
You verify an online AI job by checking that it looks like what real postings show: an employer you can find yourself, a named way of being paid, an assessment and ID check inside the company's own platform, and no fee. This takes about ten minutes, and it matters because job scams are common enough to be tracked by the government. The FTC reported on March 10, 2025 that reports of job and employment agency scams tripled from 2020 to 2024, and that the amount consumers reported losing to them rose from $90 million to $501 million.
What a real posting shows
- A company site you can reach on your own. Type the company's address into your browser instead of following a link in a message. Every company in this guide has its own careers or sign-up page.
- A named way of being paid. Platforms such as DataAnnotation, Outlier and Mindrift say how and when they pay: PayPal, Payoneer or Tipalti, weekly or twice a month.
- Assessment and ID check inside the platform. The test and the verification happen on the company's own site, not over chat or text.
- No fee, ever. The FTC says honest employers will never ask you to pay to get a job, and its advice for online jobs is: "Never pay anyone to get paid."
- A hiring process through the front door. The FTC advises ignoring generic and unexpected texts or WhatsApp messages about jobs. A real application starts when you go to the company.
- No check to deposit and forward. The FTC says no honest employer will send you a check and tell you to send part of the money on.
If a posting matches all six, you can proceed with confidence. If one does not match, the FTC suggests reporting it at ReportFraud.ftc.gov or to your state attorney general.
What other part-time jobs exist around AI?
Beyond rating and writing tasks, several part-time roles sit close to AI work, and a technical path exists for people who want to build a career in the field. TELUS Digital, for example, lists search and media evaluation, internet safety evaluation, personalized ads assessment and online data analysis roles in many languages, marked part time and remote. Other roles to look for include content review, product testing and customer support at AI companies; read each description for its hours and requirements. The technical side is a different path, and the best official data comes from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The BLS does not use the label "AI job," so the closest official occupation is data scientist. For data scientists, the BLS reports a median pay of $120,230 per year in May 2025 and a projected employment growth of 35 percent from 2025 to 2035, and it lists a bachelor's degree as the typical entry-level education. The profile was last modified on August 27, 2026.
The contrast is the useful point: task work is open to beginners and pays by the task or project, while the technical path is usually full-time and starts with formal training.
Ideal for you if you want to learn how AI is used at work and prefer a flexible starting point over a long training program.
What is the other way to earn part-time with AI?
The other way is to own what you earn from: you set the price, find the customer and deliver the work yourself, using AI tools to do it faster. That is the main difference from platform task work, where the platform sets the rate, opens the projects and decides how much is available. Neither approach is better in every case. Task work suits someone who wants paid hours with little setup, and an offer of your own suits someone who wants to build something that stays theirs. You can also combine them: start with task work for quick hours and add a project of your own later.
| Task work from a platform | Something you own | |
|---|---|---|
| Who sets the price | The platform, by track or project | You |
| How you start | Assessment, identity check, then projects | Pick an offer, build a sample, contact people who need it |
| Where work comes from | Projects the platform opens | Customers you find |
| When you are paid | On the platform's schedule (weekly, twice a month, on request) | When a customer pays you |
| Best for | Flexible extra hours with clear instructions | Building income that belongs to you over time |
Income figures help set expectations for either path. In Bankrate's 2025 survey, run by YouGov among 2,616 U.S. adults, 27% said they have a side hustle, and side hustlers earn an average of $885 a month but $200 at the median. The gap between the two numbers shows that a few people earn far more than most.
If the "own it" column appeals to you, these guides go further: 10 part-time AI side hustles with costs, the ten ways to make money with AI and a look at whether AI freelancing is worth it for people who prefer to be hired by a client. Our free ebook, built around our CLEAR method, compares five such paths in one 15 minute read.
Frequently asked questions
What is the easiest AI job to get?
General AI training and evaluation is the usual entry point, because companies such as DataAnnotation say no coding experience is required for their general projects. You still complete an assessment and an identity check, so read the company's own requirements page first. Reading carefully and writing clearly are the skills these tasks reward.
What is an entry-level AI job?
An entry-level AI job is a role that does not require prior AI experience. Examples include rating chatbot answers, evaluating search results and reviewing content. Technical entry-level roles, such as data science, typically ask for a bachelor's degree, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Can you get a part-time AI job with no experience?
Yes. Outlier states that no AI experience is needed, and Mindrift offers all-access tasks with no education, experience or skill requirements. Companies ask for good writing, reasoning and attention to instructions, and most use an assessment to confirm it.
Do you need a degree for part-time AI jobs?
It depends on the track. DataAnnotation's general work asks for a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience, and Outlier lists undergraduate-level expertise as the minimum. Mindrift has all-access tasks with no education requirement and specialized projects that usually need a degree. Check the requirements for the track you want before you apply.
Is AI a high paying job?
Technical careers can be. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports a median of $120,230 a year for data scientists in May 2025. Task work for platforms works differently: DataAnnotation publishes hourly rates that start at $25 to $50+ for general projects, and pay depends on the track, the project and the work available.
Is a degree in AI worth it?
The BLS data points one way: data scientists, the closest official occupation, typically enter with a bachelor's degree, and employment is projected to grow 35 percent from 2025 to 2035. For flexible extra income now, task work does not require that path.
How do I get paid for AI training work?
Each company has its own schedule. DataAnnotation pays through PayPal, with deposits arriving within a few days of your request. Outlier says it pays weekly. Mindrift pays twice a month, on the 5th and 20th, through Payoneer or Tipalti. The payment method and schedule appear on each company's own page.
Do I pay taxes on AI task income?
Yes. As an independent contractor, you owe self-employment tax of 15.3% (12.4% for Social Security and 2.9% for Medicare), and the IRS says you file Schedule SE if your net earnings from self-employment were $400 or more. This is general information; the IRS site or a tax professional can answer questions about your situation.
How do I check that an online job offer is real?
Reach the company through its own website, confirm that it names how it pays, complete the assessment and ID check on its platform, and never pay anything. The FTC adds that you should ignore generic, unexpected texts or WhatsApp messages about jobs and never deposit a check and send part of it on. Report problems at ReportFraud.ftc.gov.
Is AI training work a real way to earn?
Yes. The companies in this guide publish how they pay, verify identity and describe the work in detail. The right expectation is extra income by the task or project, with hours you choose, not a fixed salary. Work availability follows demand, so many people sign up with more than one platform.
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Pay, hours and requirements were read on each company's own page on October 7, 2026, and they can change, so confirm them on the page before you apply.
- DataAnnotation, Frequently Asked Questions (read October 7, 2026)
- Outlier, outlier.ai home page (read October 7, 2026)
- Mindrift, FAQ (read October 7, 2026)
- TELUS Digital, Careers, AI Community category (read October 7, 2026)
- Federal Trade Commission, New FTC Data Show a Big Jump in Reported Losses to Fraud to $12.5 Billion in 2024 (March 10, 2025)
- Federal Trade Commission, Data Spotlight: Paying to get paid: gamified job scams drive record losses (December 12, 2024)
- Federal Trade Commission, Consumer Advice, Job Scams (March 2023)
- Internal Revenue Service, Self-Employment Tax (Social Security and Medicare Taxes) (reviewed June 27, 2026)
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Outlook Handbook: Data Scientists (modified August 27, 2026)
- Bankrate, Fewer Americans Have a Side Hustle in 2025 (survey by YouGov, July 9, 2025)