AI-related freelance projects command 52% higher budgets as demand shifts to specialised skills: OpenAI report

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the freelance economy by changing not only the tasks businesses outsource but also how different skills and activities are combined into projects, according to a new report by OpenAI and Upwork.

The report, titled The Rebundling of Freelance Work in the AI Age, published in November 2026, finds that AI-related freelance projects are becoming more diverse, combining technical implementation, creative production and business workflows. 

Rather than simply replacing freelancers, the findings point to growing demand for professionals who can integrate AI tools, apply specialised expertise and deliver finished outcomes.

The study compares more than 36,000 sampled personal and work-related ChatGPT conversations with job postings on the Upwork Marketplace to examine differences between activities people undertake directly using AI and those businesses continue to outsource to independent professionals.

It found that ChatGPT use is more concentrated in writing and advisory activities, while freelance job postings place greater emphasis on technical implementation, visual production and specialised services.

Content writing accounted for 14.5% of sampled ChatGPT conversations, while professional and business writing represented 10.2%. By comparison, these activities accounted for approximately 1.3% and 0.4% of Upwork job postings, respectively.

Conversely, graphic and presentation design, video and animation, quality assurance testing, mobile development, digital marketing and web development represented larger shares of freelance demand than of ChatGPT activity.

The findings suggest that businesses continue to seek freelancers for work requiring specialised tools, technical expertise, implementation and the delivery of completed products.

The report also found that activities more commonly undertaken through ChatGPT tended to lose share in the freelance marketplace, while those less prevalent in direct ChatGPT use more frequently gained share. Of the 63 work subcategories examined, 43, or 68.3%, followed this pattern.

Content writing was among the categories experiencing a notable decline. Freelance postings for the category fell at more than twice the rate of overall Upwork postings between the first half of 2023 and the second half of 2025. In contrast, video and animation postings grew by approximately a third relative to the overall marketplace.

However, the researchers cautioned against interpreting these trends as straightforward evidence of AI replacing freelance work, noting that some activities gaining marketplace share were also common in ChatGPT use.

AI-related freelance projects are becoming more complex

A key finding is that AI-related freelance work is expanding beyond a narrow set of technical activities into broader projects involving multiple capabilities.

Between early 2023 and late 2025, the effective number of task clusters within AI-related job postings increased from 14.6 to 21.2, representing a rise of approximately 45%. This indicates that AI-related work is becoming less concentrated in a handful of activities and more evenly distributed across different types of work.

AI-related job postings also contained an average of 3.35 distinct tasks, compared with 3.19 for non-AI postings, a difference of approximately 5%.

Examples include projects combining chatbot or machine-learning development with computer vision and AI application programming interface (API) integration, as well as assignments involving AI-generated video alongside video production, editing and motion graphics.

Demand is also shifting towards applied business workflows, including marketing automation and social media campaign management, alongside creative production and AI integration.

The report found that AI-related projects were more likely to combine tasks that clients had rarely requested together before the generative AI era. Historically uncommon task combinations accounted for an average of 8.4% of task pairs within AI-related projects, compared with 2.4% in non-AI projects.

Even when controlling for project size, work category and posting month, AI-related jobs continued to feature task combinations with lower historical prevalence. The difference was particularly pronounced in generative AI and creative production, where task pairings had approximately 60% lower historical prevalence than comparable non-AI projects.

This suggests that businesses are increasingly combining AI capabilities with established professional services and production activities to deliver more comprehensive outcomes.

AI-related projects carry higher budgets

The expansion in the scope of freelance assignments is also reflected in project budgets.

According to the report, fixed-price budgets for AI-related freelance projects were approximately 70% higher than those for non-AI projects overall. After accounting for work subcategory and posting month, the difference remained around 52%.

The gap in posted hourly rates was considerably smaller. While AI-related postings carried hourly rates approximately 9% higher overall, the difference fell to around 1.5% after adjustments for work category and posting month.

However, the volume of work purchased was significantly higher. Among hired hourly contracts with positive recorded hours, AI-related projects involved approximately 41% more hours during the first 90 days after hiring, even after accounting for work subcategory and calendar month.

The findings suggest that higher budgets for AI-related freelance work may reflect larger project scopes and greater labour requirements rather than simply higher hourly compensation.

The report points to several possible explanations, including greater experimentation, additional rounds of refinement and the need for freelancers to take ownership of more complex combinations of tasks.

A shift towards integration and end-to-end delivery

The findings highlight a broader shift in how businesses organise work as AI becomes embedded in production and business operations.

While generative AI can make individual activities easier to perform, businesses may require additional expertise to connect tools, assess outputs, manage workflows and deliver completed products.

The report concludes that the value of freelance work may increasingly lie in defining problems, connecting different capabilities, applying domain expertise and taking responsibility for the final outcome.

It also cautions that the findings should not be interpreted as a representation of the entire labour market. ChatGPT conversations and Upwork job postings offer complementary perspectives, but the datasets are not directly matched and do not establish a causal relationship between AI adoption and changes in freelance hiring.

Nevertheless, the research offers an early indication of how generative AI is changing the organisation of work, with businesses increasingly seeking professionals who can combine AI capabilities with technical, creative and operational expertise.