OpenAI and Upwork Research Examines the Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Freelance Market

OpenAI and Upwork published joint research examining the impacts of artificial intelligence on the freelance market. The research shows that AI projects generally involve larger budgets, longer working hours, and a wider distribution of tasks compared to standard job postings.

According to Upwork's 2026 Future of Workforce Index, 38 percent of skilled knowledge workers in the US work as freelancers. The previous annual study estimates that knowledge-based freelancing generated $1.5 trillion in earnings in the US in 2024. Thanks to short contracts and changing requirements, the market structure can reflect shifts faster than overall employment statistics in the economy.

When examining use cases between the two platforms, it was observed that writing jobs hold a larger share of ChatGPT usages, while areas such as video and animation take up more space in Upwork job postings. With the increase in artificial intelligence usage, the demand for freelance work has also reshaped, and it was determined that 43 out of 63 analyzed job categories follow this changing model.

Towards the end of 2025, clients began requesting the use of artificial intelligence in areas such as chatbot development, video production, marketing automation, and application integration. It was noted that task diversity in AI projects increased by 45 percent between early 2023 and late 2025, and that projects involved larger fixed-price budgets and more working hours despite similar hourly rates.