I've been watching the explosion of companies hiring AI trainers. What started with Data Annotation Tech has turned into an entire ecosystem. Students, freelancers, and remote workers are all chasing these gigs that pay $15-30 an hour for training AI models.
The market is flooded now. Here's the complete list of what I'm seeing.
Complete List of AI Training Companies
- Rise Data Labs: New player, catching up
- Scale AI: Over 100 trainer positions, infrastructure leader
- Outlier: Up to $30/hour for coding, quick onboarding, weekly pay
- Stellar AI: $25 minimum rate, PayPal payments
- Data Annotation Tech: The original, consistent work flow
- Mercor: Recruiting for OpenAI Expert Model Trainers
- Invisible Technologies: Domain experts (workplace issues reported)
- Alignerr: Similar work to DA, decent pay
- SuperAnnotate: Data labeling and AI training
- Micro1: Emerging in the space
- Handshake: Expanding AI training division
- Appen: Global platform, various AI projects
- Remotasks (Scale AI subsidiary): Overflow work
- TELUS International: AI Rater positions
- OneForma: WFH AI training roles
- Clickworker: Microtasks and AI training
- TaskUs: Customer service + AI training
- Labelbox: Data labeling focus
- Amazon Mechanical Turk: Crowdsourced AI tasks
- WeLocalize: Localization + AI training
- Babel.Audio: Voice recording for AI (sells voice rights)
- Prolific: Research studies, some AI work
- Cloud Connect: Adding more AI studies
What These AI Training Companies Actually Do
They're all middlemen. AI labs need training data and human feedback but don't want to hire thousands of contractors directly. These companies handle the logistics, screening, and payments.
You evaluate model outputs, write training examples, rank responses, or fix code. The work is repetitive but requires domain knowledge. If you can code, you get the higher-paying projects.
What It’s Really Like
Most of these companies have the same problems. Work comes in waves, then disappears for weeks. Pay is decent but inconsistent. Getting accepted is getting harder as they have enough people.
Outlier rejects people with math degrees for failing their math tests. Stellar AI isn't really hiring despite keeping applications open. Invisible laid off entire teams when their project manager got arrested.
Which Ones Are Worth It
From what I'm seeing in forums:
- Best for beginners: Outlier, Mercor
- Best pay: Stellar AI (if you can get in), coding work on Outlier
- Most consistent work: Rise Data Labs, Scale AI, Data Annotation Tech
Red flags: Companies asking to send you equipment or checks upfront. Anything that sounds too good to be true probably is.
Proceed with caution
This entire ecosystem exists because AI training needs human judgment at scale. But the endgame is reducing that human dependency. These companies are building themselves out of their current business model.
The smart ones know this. They're positioning themselves as AI training infrastructure rather than just human labor platforms. The ones that don't adapt will disappear when the demand for manual training drops.
If you're doing this work, treat it as temporary income while building other skills. The AI training gold rush is real money right now, but it won't last forever.
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