Methodology

Scope

AI Native Map lists AI-native services firms: companies that sell the finished work, not the software for it, and run that work on AI. The working definition is on what AI-native services means. Firms are grouped into 12 categories such as legal, tax and accounting, insurance, healthcare and finance. Voice, audio and contact-center companies, software vendors, marketplaces and manufacturers are out of scope. Borderline cases are marked on the hiring tracker and left out of its headline figures.

Sources

Everything comes from public material: company websites and careers pages, press releases, funding announcements, trade press, investor market maps, regulator registers and public job boards. A field is filled only when a source states it. Blank means unknown, not zero. Every profile lists the sources behind its facts, and each fact keeps the link it came from.

Weekly pipeline

The collection runs as an automated pipeline once a week, with a human editor deciding what is listed.

1. Discover. New firms are found from public announcements, market maps and submissions.
2. Check against scope. Each candidate is read against the definition above. Firms that sell software or run a marketplace are excluded.
3. Fill and source. Headquarters, category, business model, funding and headcount are filled from public sources and checked against the firm's own site.
4. Scan hiring. The public job boards of firms that have one are read, and each title is classified by fixed rules into engineering and AI, professional service staff, production and field, and other.
5. Snapshot. The result is saved as a dated snapshot. The latest is October 26, 2026.
6. Publish. Pages, charts, the free file and the sitemap are rebuilt from the snapshot.

What is published and what is not

The site publishes conclusions: counts, shares, rankings and charts built from the current snapshot, plus a free teaser file licensed under CC BY 4.0. The funding amounts, headcounts, per-source detail and the weekly hiring history behind them make up the full dataset, which is available by email request.

How hiring is counted

The scan reads job boards on Ashby, Greenhouse, Lever and Workable that are linked from a firm's own site. A listing is not a hire, and one listing can cover several seats, so counts describe open roles and not headcount. Firms that recruit through other channels do not appear, which tilts the sample toward venture-backed US and UK firms. The classification rules are described on the hiring tracker.

Limits

Directory coverage is strongest for firms that announce funding or press. Small and bootstrapped firms may be missing, and the lists are not a census. Public sources can lag or disagree, in which case the firm's own statement is preferred and noted. Counts on a page are tied to the snapshot date shown on it.

Editor and independence

AI Native Map is edited anonymously. Listing and ranking decisions are made by the editor and are not for sale. Any paid placement is labelled as sponsored on the page where it appears, and does not change a profile's facts.

Corrections and reuse

Send corrections through the submit form or claim your profile. Reviewed corrections go into the next weekly run. The teaser file and the charts are free to reuse under CC BY 4.0 with a link back. To cite: AI Native Map (2026). Methodology. https://ainativemap.com/methodology/