The Booming AI Job Market: The “Two-Track Growth” Reshaping Thailand’s Workforce
The most crucial — and potentially most significant bottleneck — in Thailand’s AI strategy lies in human capital.
A report from the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI) on the AI labor market in 2025 paints a striking picture: the AI-related job market has grown by 31% in just one year.
However, this growth has not been evenly distributed. Instead, it has followed a pattern of “Two-Tracked Growth”:
High-Skill Track: Demand for advanced professionals has surged dramatically. Positions like AI/ML Engineers have increased by 278% compared to the previous year.
Low-Skill Track: Meanwhile, demand for entry-level roles has also skyrocketed. The Data Annotator position—responsible for preparing data used to train AI—has grown by 586%, even though 76% of these jobs are offered by foreign companies.
This phenomenon indicates that the entire AI value chain is being built in Thailand, ranging from complex model development to labor-intensive data preparation work.
The surging demand has created a massive gap between market needs and the available workforce’s skill levels:
Alarmingly, 37% of all current job postings in Thailand now require AI-related skills, including digital literacy, data analytics, or direct AI usage capabilities.
This demand has led to an acute talent shortage, identified as one of the key barriers preventing deeper AI adoption across industries.
Entry-level salaries for AI-related positions range from 30,000 to 40,000 THB per month, reflecting the scarcity of skilled professionals in the market.
Educational institutions across Thailand are racing to respond to this demand:
University Programs: Leading universities have launched specialized bachelor’s programs in AI, Data Science, and Robotics Engineering, including Chulalongkorn University, King Mongkut’s Institute of Technology Ladkrabang, Mahidol University, Burapha University, and Bangkok University.
Upskill and Reskill Initiatives: Training programs have proliferated to upgrade the existing workforce. Many of these are government-backed collaborations with universities, such as North Bangkok University, which focuses on applying AI in business and cybersecurity. Free online courses on Generative AI and digital marketing from various universities are also open to the general public and working professionals.
Solving the human capital challenge isn’t only about producing AI experts — it’s also about building basic AI understanding across the population.
Experts emphasize that AI Literacy is just as important as AI Ethics. The goal isn’t to make everyone a programmer, but to enable all citizens to use AI tools effectively, understand their limitations, and critically evaluate AI-generated outputs.
Given the rapid pace of AI evolution, traditional practices quickly become outdated. The real goal is to foster Lifelong Learning, empowering individuals to adapt to new technologies continuously. This is increasingly seen as the only survival strategy for workers in the modern era — to avoid being replaced by automation.
The “Two-Track Growth” trend poses serious risks to Thailand’s mid-skill workforce, particularly those in repetitive data-processing roles, who are most vulnerable to automation.
Hence, Upskill and Reskill initiatives are not merely about closing the skill gap, but about preventing technology-driven unemployment and potential social unrest.
The real challenge is transforming at-risk “mid-skill workers” into AI-augmented professionals — individuals who can work alongside AI and leverage it effectively.
Connecting all analyses together reveals one clear picture:
The success of Thailand’s National AI Strategy hinges primarily on solving the human capital equation.
Even with advanced infrastructure (Article 1), the private tech sector remains weak (Article 2), largely due to shallow AI adoption (Article 3) — all rooted in the shortage of skilled AI talent (Article 4).
Thus, human capital is not merely one of the five strategic pillars; it is the foundation that supports them all.
Investment in education, skill development, and nationwide AI literacy is the single most critical determinant of whether Thailand’s multi-billion-baht AI gamble will succeed — or falter.