On 10 November 2026, OpenAI and Upwork published joint research on the freelance market. The authors compared the tasks people do themselves in ChatGPT conversations with the jobs clients post on Upwork, the marketplace that connects clients with freelancers. The headline finding matters to anyone who sells services by the project: work that involves AI gets a larger budget, but not a higher hourly rate.
A 52% budget gap and a 1.5% rate gap
The study counts a job as AI-related when the client asks for AI skills, requires AI tools, or wants AI-generated output improved. It compares jobs in the same subcategory posted in the same month, so the gap does not come from the type of work or the season. The data runs through April 2026.
On fixed-price projects, posted budgets were about 52% higher when the work involved AI. On hourly contracts, freelancers logged about 41% more hours on AI-related work in the first 90 days. The posted hourly rate, by contrast, was only 1.5% higher.
So clients are not paying more per hour for someone who works with AI. They are commissioning bigger projects. AI-related postings listed 3.35 distinct tasks on average, against 3.19 for other postings. The report's examples: one posting asking for AI-generated video together with editing and motion graphics, or a chatbot together with its integration into an app.
Content writing lost about a third of its share
The other side is harder on writers. Content writing's share of Upwork job posts fell by roughly 31% between the first half of 2025 and the first half of 2026. In the first half of 2026 it made up just 1.3% of posts, while it accounts for 14.5% of ChatGPT conversations (January 2025 to June 2026). The authors suggest clients are writing with AI themselves instead of hiring. Customer service and tech support show the same gap: 6.5% of ChatGPT conversations, 1.2% of Upwork posts.
Earlier OpenAI figures showed that writing is 35% of Israelis' work questions to ChatGPT, which is the same task business owners are already handing to an assistant.
The substitution is not uniform, though. Of 63 work categories analysed, 43 showed heavy ChatGPT use alongside a falling Upwork share, and 20 showed the reverse. Graphic, editorial and presentation design is 10.5% of Upwork posts even though people generate images with AI all the time. Video and animation is 10% of posts and 1% of conversations; mobile development is 7.8% of posts and 0.2% of conversations.
Clients now bundle unusual combinations
The variety of tasks in AI-related postings rose about 45% between early 2023 and late 2025, which the report describes as going from roughly 15 equally common tasks to roughly 21. Video production, social media campaigns, marketing automation and AI integration all grew their share.
Clients also assemble packages that rarely existed before. In AI-related postings with at least two tasks, 8.4% of task pairs were rare combinations, ones that had appeared together in fewer than 200 earlier postings. In non-AI postings the figure was 2.4%.
Pricing by the project
The figures cover Upwork's global marketplace and are not broken down by country. For a freelancer in Israel, or anywhere else, who finds clients there, this is the market they compete in, and the numbers point to a few practical moves.
The first is about pricing. If the hourly rate barely moves while the total budget rises by half, the gain is in quoting for a whole project rather than raising the hourly figure. Anyone who still bills by the hour needs to know what an hour really costs them, and pricing your hourly rate as a freelancer starts from tax, National Insurance and the hours no client pays for. A project quote is built on top of that and covers every task the client asked for.
The second is about what you sell. A writer offering only text sits in a category whose share is shrinking. The same writer offering a script, a short video and a social campaign as one package matches the kind of job clients are posting more often.
The third is administrative, and specific to Israel: a project for an overseas client through Upwork is still income of the Israeli business and needs a document issued for it. A service to a foreign resident can qualify for zero-rated VAT on work for foreign clients, under the conditions the law sets.
The authors add their own caveat: ChatGPT use alone does not explain the shifts in demand, and the picture is not a simple swap of people for software. In their reading, AI may be changing the mix of work and the scope of projects without reducing overall demand for labor.