Jab postings for AI enablement postings have climbed to 550 per million, said Aubrey Woessner, an economist at Indeed.JOBFlocks
As Canadian companies wake up to AI sticker shock, many of them are seeking employees who can both help spearhead and control the costs of the next wave of adoption: AI enablement officers.
The role has recently emerged as a hot job in the technology sector as companies’ use of large language models (LLM) matures, said Vector Institute VP of AI engineering Kathryn Hume. The position is best suited to someone who is technology-oriented, has strong business acumen and financial management skills.
Job postings for AI enablement roles averaged roughly 10 per every million Canadian listings on job site Indeed up until 2025. Now, that number has climbed to about 550 AI enablement postings per million, said Aubrey Woessner, an economist at Indeed.
Those who land AI enablement roles may also see salaries that reflect the surge in demand for this work.
This year, the median advertised salary for management AI enablement roles was $140,000 as of mid-August. That’s compared with $90,000 in management roles that do not include AI enablement, Ms. Woessner said.
Organizations are looking for candidates with a unique combination of credentials to lead a shift toward finding AI-adoption efficiencies. In workplaces where “tokenmaxxing”– that is, maximizing the consumption of tokens, which are units of LLM computing power that cost money, as proof of high employee productivity – were all the rage, companies are now prioritizing profitability, Ms. Hume said. AI enablement managers must instead be experts at maximizing value and communicating to employees how best to use those resources.
Controlling the costs of artificial intelligence has emerged as a major challenge for companies. For example, Uber Technologies Inc. said in the spring that it burned through its entire annual AI budget in just a few months after its employees exhausted their use of Claude Code tokens. Meanwhile, Shopify Inc. reported profit growth as executives suggested token costs were under control in early August, after noting increased costs during its previous earnings call in May.
You’ll need some technical chops for an AI enablement role, including an understanding of the mechanics of an AI system, being able to communicate with non-technical stakeholders and having a strong foundation of operations and financial management, Ms. Hume said.
But, the systemic problem-solving skills the field demands are just as important for these types of roles, said University of Waterloo computer science professor Edith Law.
The university recently announced a certificate focused on AI transformation and change management in partnership with Toronto-based AI company Cohere Inc.
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“We recognize that specific technologies are changing so rapidly in terms of what they can do, how much they cost, etc., so our goal is really to teach the students the fundamental concepts and processes that would be resilient to these changes,” Prof. Law explained. The non-credit certificate will offer modules focused on human-centred design, ethics, change management and business strategies.
Canada’s big banks are also assembling AI business enablement teams. For instance, a recent job posting from Bank of Montreal was seeking an AI enablement and scalability senior manager, someone who could help teams deploy AI across the business and ensure scalability of the bank’s AI investments.
Scotiabank chief technology officer Ty Panagoplos said he is looking for individuals who bring abstract and creative thinking to his organization’s enablement efforts.
“Not only do you really need to understand the technology, but you need to understand how to rethink technology and almost how to rethink a business,” he said.
Mr. Panagoplos also emphasized the sway a candidate’s communication skills could have on their chances of landing a role.
“You need to be able to translate sometimes complex technology capabilities with business people and help them understand how to leverage it.”
Sohaib Perwaiz, Royal Bank of Canada’s vice-president of business enablement for its AI group, has a background in the medical device industry, master’s degrees in both business and public administration, along with consulting experience at McKinsey & Co. There, he worked with large banks on tech-enabled transformation, he said in an interview.
“Being that connective tissue from what happens with the AI researchers in the labs to what happens with the banking professionals that serve our clients is where enablement lives,” he said.
Similarly, Mr. Perwaiz described him and his team’s mandate as helping the entire bank rethink how AI can play into business models, and serving as “on-the-ground incubators” to make changes happen. In a May earnings call, RBC executives said the bank’s LLM token use was up by more than 500 per cent since 2025.
Mr. Perwaiz said candidates with a variety of backgrounds – from operators who went into technology roles to engineers with business leadership experience – are under consideration. But they all must have a common trait: “People who thrive in this type of a job are people who are relentlessly curious, who are always looking to find interesting ways to solve problems,” he said.