Forensic vibers wanted - and 10 other new job roles AI could create

imaginima/iStock/Getty Images Plus via Getty Images Follow ZDNET: Add us as a preferred source on Google. ZDNET's key takeaways Prompt engineer is the newest role, but many other roles will follow. Human professionals will be needed to keep AI productive and in check. Here are 11 new types of jobs only starting to be imagined. Yes, certain job roles will be key to succeeding in an AI-drenched workplace -- data scientists, data analysts, and Python programmers come to mind. There's also a lot of attention on an emerging profession -- prompt engineer. At least 85% of US workers across all generations believe AI prompting will be an important job skill within the next five years, a new survey by Rev shows. Gen Z sees the potential: 63% of these younger respondents say strong prompt-writing skills will "definitely" be a career asset. Also: No ROI on your AI? The solution is simpler - and more human - than you think These are all roles that look like obvious career paths from today's perspective. But we don't know what kind of world AI will open in the near and distant future, just as nobody could have foreseen jobs such as "webmaster" or "cloud architect" back in the early days of the commercial internet. 11 more potential new job roles While there are many fears about AI, particularly generative AI, usurping job roles -- especially technology jobs -- human professionals will be needed more than ever to keep things on track, involving job roles that aren't quite as obvious. This includes creating and managing models, maintaining and updating the models, and ensuring models' accuracy and performance across enterprises. Then there are all the ethical and legal aspects to AI deployments that require constant human supervision. In June, we examined 15 new types of jobs that may emerge in the AI world. Industry observers have provided another 11 potential new roles. 1. Agent behavior coach: These coaches will be responsible for "tuning autonomous agents to reflect brand voice, business goals, and ethical values," said Marinela Profi, global AI and generative AI market strategy lead at SAS. "They will ensure that AI doesn't just act -- but that it acts appropriately, balancing autonomy with accountability." 2. Responsible AI engineer/AI ethics engineer: "This role will deal with ensuring the outputs from large language models or generative AI systems are truthful, harmless, and helpful," said Aatif Belal, applied AI manager at Deloitte. "The LLMs are known to hallucinate and make up information, and therefore, it requires engineering effort to guide the model to produce outputs in a responsible manner. This role will apply a diverse set of skills ranging from prompt engineering to selecting the right model for the use-case to designing a system with a human in the loop to validate the model's outputs." Also: No, AI isn't stealing your tech job - it's just transforming it 3. Cognitive architect: "This role emphasizes logic, critical thinking, and business strategy in guiding the actions of AI agents," said Emilio Salvador, vice president of strategy and developer relations at GitLab. "They don't write code or architect a solution; they design the blueprint of thought that guides AI to create the right software solution. They deconstruct a business challenge into its fundamental principles and desired outcomes. They then translate this logic into a structured strategy, specifying the required functions, data flows, and success metrics. This strategic brief is then fed to a team of specialized AI agents, which they orchestrate to autonomously design, code, and deploy the application." 4. AI psychologist: This role will be "a combination of engineer, psychologist, physicist, mathematician, mystery enthusiast, and hard-core troubleshooter," said Eric Bravick, a neuropharmacologist and CEO of The Lifted Initiative. "As models become more complex and generalized, someone will need all these skills to manage an AI subsystem, which will increasingly have complex error modes more akin to behavior than programming." 5. Human-AI interface designer: This will be similar to "human-computer interaction roles that focus on the experience that we all have with software," said Nayan Jain, executive director of AI at ustwo. "A human-AI designer would have a deep background in psychology, AI fundamentals, and interfaces to imagine the next generation of app and voice experiences that go beyond the basic chatbot or terminal-style window." Also: Got AI skills? You can earn 43% more in your next job - and not just for tech work 6. Forensic viber: This role will involve examining the "black boxes" (as with aircraft) to interpret what may have gone wrong before an incident, and suggest corrective action. "It's inevitable that models will be put in charge of mission- and life-critical systems," said Mike Finley, CTO and co-founder for AnswerRocket. "They will be smarter and faster than human counterparts. When this happens, things will sometimes, inevitably, go wrong. There will be black boxes for AI that record what was happening in the critical moments prior to the mistake so that closed-loop corrective action can occur -- and blame can be assigned. Interpreting the contents in order to determine an enforceable, permanent solution will be the role of the forensic viber. A human that is ultimately accountable, this profession will involve cutting-edge models as well as old-fashioned ones that can understand the high-dimensional patterns of other models and rewind chaotic states." 7. AI detective: This role will be "a crime solver who solves crimes committed by AI agents," said Bravick. "In the very near future, we will have bands of self-enabled, self-replicating AI-driven agents stealing computing time, stealing money, hijacking systems, and even physically harming humans or property. Law enforcement will need to adapt, as they did to solve computer-based crimes, to solve AI-based crimes. They may even need to employ AI psychologists or AI criminologists to help them." 8. AI ritual designer: "As AI weaves deeper into our lives, from personal wellness to enterprise productivity, we'll need people who shape how we experience these interactions," said Profi. "We're already seeing how decisioning and automation can be made more intuitive -- the next step is designing daily touchpoints that feel natural, empowering, even emotional. This role blends behavioral science, UX, and psychology to script how we wake up with AI, collaborate creatively, and unplug meaningfully." Also: Stop using AI for these 9 work tasks - here's why 9. AI and real-life integration coach: "This specialist will help individuals incorporate AI tools into daily routines in balanced, productive ways," said Luis E. Romero, founder and CEO of GenStorm AI. "Combining knowledge of AI technologies with expertise in mental health and productivity, they'll develop personalized strategies that enhance effectiveness without sacrificing well-being. They'll help clients assess technology usage, create frameworks for AI integration, establish healthy boundaries, and leverage AI for competitive advantages while maintaining authentic human connections." 10. Edge engineer: Humans can catch balls thrown at them using muscle memory. Such muscle memory is becoming essential to AI-driven edge devices, from robots to cars. "Our best AI models keep getting more and more layers, each of which introduces delays, each of which makes real-world actions less effective," said Finley. "Edge engineers will be the humans optimizing and building the systems that push thinking and compute lower in the AI stack. This role will be AI-assisted, like engineering has been for 20-plus years, but the actual optimization of the elements -- movement, sensor, compute -- that connect machines to the real world will remain the task of humans, at least until we build an AI connection to the world that is better than us too." Also: Is AI a job killer or creator? There's a third option: Startup rocket fuel 11. AI curator: This role will be especially important in healthcare settings, said Jeremy Shiner, founder and president at Myriad Systems. "There is a growing need for people who can bridge the gap between AI's lack of context and the real-world needs in healthcare. This isn't a conventional clinician or a technical engineer; it's someone who knows how to work with AI systems by modifying the inputs, checking the outputs, and ensuring that the outcomes are responsible, relevant, compliant, and understandable. To ensure AI provides value without sacrificing the patient experience, they would collaborate closely with data teams, compliance leads, and clinical staff."