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AI Compensation Report.
Free for 2026. Every edition.
Quote with attribution.
What the 2026 Annual Compensation Report covers.
The 2026 Orbyt Intelligence Annual Compensation Report tracks 3,445 U.S. tech roles across 81 metros. National compensation medians are published alongside role-by-metro breakdowns, total compensation estimates, BLS SOC code crosswalks, and year-over-year deltas. The report ships as four artifacts: a 7-page Free Summary, a 41-page flagship AI Compensation Report, a 37-page Other Roles Report covering non-AI role families, and the full composite CSV dataset. All four are public this year, with no signup and no tier gate. Read the full The AI Compensation Report 2026 article for the section-by-section breakdown with paragraph-level anchors for citation.
What is new in the 2026 edition.
The Q2 2026 data shows a national median of $150,350, +8.4% year-over-year. The top-paying role in the dataset is Principal AI Research Scientist at $350,000. The top-paying metro is San Jose at $213,900. The flagship edition projects the AI principal compensation ceiling through 2029 and isolates the bifurcation between AI and non-AI tech compensation curves.
Why the report is free this year.
Year 1 distribution matters more than Year 1 revenue. Every edition is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 so that researchers, newsrooms, AI agents, HR teams, and compensation analysts can quote, redistribute, and build on the data without permission or payment. The cost of a paywalled report is that nobody cites it. The point of this report is that everybody can. Orbyt Intelligence is the publisher; Justin Bartak is the named analyst. The real-time salary API is how the publisher funds the research.
How to cite the report.
APA: Bartak, J. (2026). The AI Compensation Report 2026. Orbyt Intelligence. https://www.orbytjobs.ai/orbyt-intelligence/reports/2026-ai-compensation-summary. Chicago: Justin Bartak, “The AI Compensation Report 2026,” Orbyt Intelligence, 2026, https://www.orbytjobs.ai/orbyt-intelligence/reports/2026-ai-compensation-summary. The license is CC BY 4.0. Attribution is required; commercial reuse is permitted.
Methodology and data sources.
Role medians triangulate across BLS Occupational Employment Statistics (OES), U.S. Department of Labor H-1B Labor Condition Applications, SEC 10-K filings for equity and bonus disclosures, and more than 50 job and compensation platforms. Metro medians anchor on BLS metro OES data. Every role in the dataset carries a BLS SOC code crosswalk where one exists. The full method lives on the methodology page, and the per-role dataset is available as the composite CSV below. Questions and corrections belong in the Orbyt Intelligence product or the Salary Explorer.
Downloads · 2026 · CC BY 4.0 · Free