We index public job postings and screen every title for AI leadership roles (Head/VP/Director/Chief of AI). Right now 1,142 companies have one open. what stood out: - 95% of these companies never posted an AI-leadership req before 2026. Companies hire a Head of AI when experiments need to become a P&L — this is that moment at scale - finance leads the non-tech pack (130 financial services + 29 banks + 40 insurers), then healthcare and pharma. Coca-Cola, P&G, Pfizer, Citi are all in the data. - the titles are "Enablement" and "Transformation" more often than "Engineering" — companies are hiring adoption executives, not researchers. - companies hiring AI leadership adopt agent frameworks at 4–5× the base rate. Higher lift than RAG. Full report with methodology (including what we refused to count): https://echoloc.ai/research/whos-hiring-heads-of-ai-2026/ Happy to answer questions [link] [comments]