# AI Jobs Index Australia. Methodology > Plain-text mirror of https://www.aijobsindex.com.au/methodology. Last > rendered 2026-06-20. Authoritative source: the live page. This Markdown > snapshot is a convenience for LLM-citation tools and AI training > crawlers. ## About this index AI Jobs Index Australia is an independent research project tracking AI's visible footprint on Australian employment. It is published monthly by Building Tech Teams and supported by NTP Talent. The index is designed as a real-time overlay alongside ABS Labour Force, ABS Job Vacancies, and the JSA Internet Vacancy Index. It does not replace official statistics; it surfaces signals that move faster than quarterly releases. ## What this index measures The index publishes three separate series. They are never summed and never subtracted from one another. ### ADI · AI Diffusion Index Share of Australian online job ads that reference AI, ML, generative AI, or named AI tools and skills. An advertisement counts toward ADI if its title or description matches any one of the published ADI keyword patterns. The denominator is all Australian-located active advertisements in the Adzuna feed during a trailing 30-day window. The figure is refreshed weekly. ### ASDI · AI-Specialist Demand Index Count of active Australian job postings where AI is the primary work. A posting qualifies if it meets any one of three rules: 1. The title contains an explicit AI-specialist designation. 2. The job requires two or more skills from the Tier A list. 3. The job requires one Tier A skill plus two or more Tier B skills. ASDI is a strict subset of ADI. Every ASDI-qualifying ad also references AI. ADI and ASDI are reported as separate figures and are not expected to be equal. ### ALWR · AI-Linked Workforce Reductions Publicly cited Australian workforce reductions where AI has been named as a driver or contributing factor. Each event has a public source. The attribution classes are: - **EXPLICIT.** Company has cited AI, automation, or machine learning as a driver in an official statement, press release, regulatory filing, or quoted executive interview. - **MIXED.** AI cited as one of several contributing factors. Other factors must also be named in the source. At least one tier-A or tier-B source must cite AI specifically. - **BLAMED.** A credible tier-A or tier-B media outlet has independently attributed the reduction to AI without company confirmation. The headline ALWR figure is EXPLICIT-only. EXPLICIT + MIXED and BLAMED are reported separately. The three classes are never summed into a single composite. ALWR counts are floors, not ceilings: companies that quietly reduce headcount without public attribution to AI do not appear in ALWR. ## Replacement vs net-new hires ADI and ASDI count Australian job advertisements. Every advertised role is included, whether new at the employer or a backfill for a departing employee. The index does not distinguish replacement hiring from net-new role creation. ABS Job Vacancies Survey faces the same constraint. Where headcount change matters, the right reference is ABS Labour Force, Detailed (cat. 6291.0.55.001), not this index. ## Classification rules and published patterns The ADI and ASDI classifiers are deterministic regular expressions, not LLM calls. Every advertisement is matched against the word-boundary patterns below, case-insensitive. The patterns are also available in machine-readable form at https://www.aijobsindex.com.au/methodology/regex.json. ### ADI keyword patterns - **artificial intelligence** `/artificial intelligence/i` - **AI** `/\bAI\b/i` - **machine learning** `/machine learning/i` - **ML** `/\bML\b/i` - **generative AI** `/generative AI/i` - **genAI** `/\bgen[\s-]?AI\b/i` - **LLM** `/\bLLMs?\b/i` - **large language model** `/large language models?/i` - **ChatGPT** `/chatgpt/i` - **GPT** `/\bGPT-?\d*/i` - **Claude** `/\bclaude\b/i` - **Gemini** `/\bgemini\b/i` - **Copilot** `/\bcopilot\b/i` - **Llama** `/\bllama\b/i` - **deep learning** `/deep learning/i` - **neural network** `/neural networks?/i` - **transformer** `/\btransformers?\b/i` - **NLP** `/\bNLP\b/i` - **natural language processing** `/natural language processing/i` - **computer vision** `/computer vision/i` - **reinforcement learning** `/reinforcement learning/i` - **prompt engineering** `/prompt engineering/i` - **RAG** `/\bRAG\b/i` - **retrieval augmented generation** `/retrieval[\s-]?augmented generation/i` - **embeddings** `/\bembeddings?\b/i` - **vector database** `/vector databases?/i` - **foundation model** `/foundation models?/i` - **agentic AI** `/\bagent(ic)?\s+AI\b/i` - **AutoML** `/\bAutoML\b/i` - **MLOps** `/\bMLOps\b/i` ### ASDI title designations (rule 1) - **AI Engineer** `/\bAI engineer/i` - **ML Engineer / Machine Learning Engineer** `/\b(ML|machine learning) engineer/i` - **AI Research Scientist** `/\bAI research scientist/i` - **Applied AI Scientist** `/\bapplied AI scientist/i` - **AI Solutions Architect** `/\bAI (solutions )?architect/i` - **Computer Vision Engineer** `/\bcomputer vision engineer/i` - **NLP Engineer** `/\bNLP engineer/i` - **Speech Recognition Engineer** `/\bspeech recognition engineer/i` - **MLOps Engineer** `/\bMLOps engineer/i` - **Prompt Engineer** `/\bprompt engineer/i` - **AI Product Manager** `/\bAI product manager/i` - **AI Ethicist** `/\bAI ethicist/i` - **Responsible AI Lead** `/\bresponsible AI lead/i` - **Model Risk Analyst** `/\bmodel risk analyst/i` - **AI Governance Lead** `/\bAI governance lead/i` - **Chief AI Officer** `/\bchief AI officer/i` - **Head of AI** `/\bhead of AI\b/i` - **Director of AI** `/\bdirector of AI\b/i` Rules 2 and 3 use the Tier A and Tier B skills taxonomy at https://www.aijobsindex.com.au/methodology/taxonomy.json. ## Data sources - **Primary feed.** Adzuna plus major Australian job boards, accessed through the Adzuna developer-tier API. Aggregates Australian job postings from multiple boards and direct-employer feeds through a single documented API. Individual boards are not named in public reporting. - **Additional feed.** Direct fetch from five ATS-vendor public APIs: Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby, SmartRecruiters, Workable. Registry at https://www.aijobsindex.com.au/methodology/ats-registry.json. - **Anchor datasets** (read, not joined): ABS Labour Force, ABS Labour Force Detailed, ABS Job Vacancies, JSA Internet Vacancy Index, JSA Generative AI and the Australian Labour Market. - **Displacement event sourcing.** Tier-A and tier-B Australian and international outlets including ASX announcements, AFR, ABC, SMH, The Australian, Reuters, Bloomberg, Guardian Australia, iTnews, InnovationAus, ITWire, FT, Fortune, Capital Brief, CNBC. Tier-C outlets (Startup Daily, SmartCompany, ACS Information Age, IT Brief, Channel Life, Computerworld, ZDNet) accepted with a MIXED classification cap. Tier-D not accepted. Where an original source URL has gone offline, the index re-points to a Wayback Machine snapshot. The embedded original domain still drives the tier; a rescued Bloomberg article is treated as Bloomberg, not as archive.org. ## Source tier hierarchy - **Tier A.** ASX, official company press releases, ABS, parliamentary. - **Tier B.** AFR, ABC, SMH, The Australian, Reuters, Bloomberg, Guardian Australia, iTnews, InnovationAus, ITWire, FT, WSJ, Fortune, Capital Brief, CNBC. - **Tier C.** Startup Daily, SmartCompany, FSU updates, ACS Information Age, IT Brief, Channel Life, Computerworld, ZDNet. Caps the event at MIXED. - **Tier D.** Content aggregators, niche industry blogs, PR republishers. Not accepted. ## Update frequency - Live dashboard: weekly. - Displacement events: media monitored daily; events classified, sourced, and human-reviewed before publication. - Monthly report: second Thursday of each month, one day after the ABS Labour Force release. - Quarterly benchmark note: second week of each quarter. ## Limitations - The index measures advertised demand and publicly cited displacement. It does not measure hires, internal moves, contract conversions, or quiet workforce changes. - Adzuna coverage is not complete. The index underweights roles posted only on industry-specific or government-only platforms. - Pre-November 2022 baselines for GenAI-specific roles are not available; no year-on-year growth is published on GenAI-specific series with less than 36 months of data. - AI-assisted classifications may contain errors; aggregate accuracy is reported quarterly. - The displacement source tier hierarchy is conservative; tier-D-only events are excluded even when the underlying claim may be true. ## How to cite ``` AI Jobs Index Australia (2026). [Series name], as of [date]. Building Tech Teams. https://www.aijobsindex.com.au/[page] ``` Data licensed CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). ## Changelog Version history: https://www.aijobsindex.com.au/changelog. ## Contact Methodology questions, source additions, and data corrections: contact@aijobsindex.com.au.