New York has more tech workers than any other metro area in North America. And now, it’ll have a new training hub in Queens, as the city and state invest $10 million to bring tens of thousands of lower-income New Yorkers into the AI workforce.
Gov. Kathy Hochul on Thursday announced the AI Jobs Institute, a Long Island City hub that the nonprofit Pursuit will design and run. It aims to train up to 40,000 New Yorkers for AI-related jobs by 2032, link them to employers and produce research to guide state and federal workforce policy. Public funds come from a number of sources, including the Empire State Development, the city’s Economic Development Corporation, and the Queens Borough President’s Office. Private funders, including Ascendium Education Group, Google.org, Wells Fargo, Con Edison and Adobe, will pay to operate it.
“During a time when AI is transforming our workforce and causing uncertainty, New York is continuing to lead the nation with policies and training to ensure New Yorkers workers are protected and prepared for the future,” Hochul told Fortune.
“The AI Jobs Institute will connect thousands of New Yorkers with cutting-edge courses and career pathways, giving them the opportunity to keep up with rapidly evolving technology. By investing in our people, we are building a workforce ready to compete for the good-paying jobs of tomorrow.”
The hub opens into a tech labor market that has shifted toward New York. The metro area added 30,640 tech workers between 2022 and 2025, reaching 394,300 and passing the San Francisco Bay Area for the first time in the 13-year history of CBRE’s annual tech talent report. Much of that growth came from banks and other financial firms hiring AI talent, though the Bay Area still employs more AI specialists. Hochul’s FutureWorks Commission is due to deliver proposals by the end of December on job training and placement, job quality, the social safety net and support for small businesses.
“The city alone is going to need millions and millions of workers upskilled in AI to be able to fill the job needs of the economy by 2030,” Pursuit CEO Nick Simmons told Fortune. “We know that is going to really take a village.”
A test of scale
The institute builds on a relationship the state already has with Pursuit. When Hochul launched FutureWorks in March, Empire State Development named Pursuit the statewide lead for AI Prep for Jobs, a program to train 420 low-income New Yorkers through accelerated courses instead of degree programs.
Founded in 2012, Pursuit spent most of its history training people for software jobs. About three years ago, Simmons said, the group “took a real leap of faith” and replaced that curriculum with a 630-hour AI course it updates every week. About 400 to 500 people have gone through the new program, a count that includes both the full course and shorter workshops. Reaching 40,000 would mean growing that number roughly eighty-fold in about six years.
The nonprofit says 70% of its participants are Black or Latine, half receive public assistance, 60% lack a four-year degree and 40% are immigrants. It says its programs have produced more than $1 billion in lifetime wage gains for participants. The state’s release does not set placement or wage targets for the new institute.
The hub also arrives as the entry-level jobs that once absorbed new tech workers are shrinking. Census Bureau research shows that since ChatGPT’s release, graduates of AI-exposed majors such as computer science have been landing fewer jobs and lower pay, often in retail and food service. Entry-level postings in AI-exposed fields also increasingly ask for skills once expected only of experienced workers.
In past waves of new technology, Simmons said, wealthier New Yorkers got access to training first, and the gap compounded.
“Something we’re really thinking about this time is the institute is really focused on lower income New Yorkers and making sure that this time they are able to be at the front of the line,” he said.
Pursuit recruits through the New York City Housing Authority, the public library system, local labor departments and community groups, and plans to add small business associations. Trainees start with the basics of tools such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and Copilot, then learn to build AI agents that handle routine business tasks.
“If you don’t have proficiency, AI can be dangerous,” Simmons said. “It can be feeding you false answers. It can be just a yes person telling you you have the best ideas ever.”
Former U.S. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona will chair the institute’s national advisory council. Its members include Leah Belsky, OpenAI’s head of education; Eleanor Dorfman, Anthropic’s head of industries, commercial sales and private equity; Maggie Cacioppo of Google.org; and CUNY Chancellor Félix Matos Rodríguez.
Simmons said OpenAI, Anthropic and Google are supplying credits, certificates and access to their training platforms so trainees learn on the tools employers use. Employers on the council report which skills they are hiring for.
The institute also plans to work with CUNY, which enrolls roughly 500,000 students, Simmons said, on programs such as add-on AI certificates. Pursuit trained 100 students this year at LaGuardia Community College, across the street from the new site, and plans to expand that partnership.
“These are where the jobs are, and this is where the economic mobility is,” Simmons said.