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Artificial intelligence groups are on a hiring spree for a rare kind of software developer who can code and talk to customers, as they race to increase adoption of their cutting-edge technology.
Anthropic, OpenAI and Cohere are recruiting for so-called forward-deployed engineers, a new job for generative AI companies, as part of a push to generate more revenues by installing specialists within businesses to help them customise their AI models.
OpenAI set up an FDE team at the start of this year and expects to grow it to about 50 engineers in 2025, Arnaud Fournier, who heads up the company’s FDEs in Europe and the Middle East, told the Financial Times. Anthropic said it would grow its applied AI team, which includes FDEs and product engineers, fivefold this year to meet customer demand.
Job advertisements for these type of customer-facing AI roles have rocketed in 2025, according to data from jobs platform Indeed. Monthly job listings for FDEs increased more than 800 per cent between January and September this year.
The move comes as businesses across industries from manufacturing to healthcare are increasingly keen to adopt AI tools, but are often unsure how to use the technology and generate a return on investment.
“A Fortune 500 bank has completely different needs than a start-up building an AI-native product,” said Cat de Jong, head of applied AI at Anthropic.
Nic Prettejohn, head of AI in the UK at Palantir, the data intelligence group, called the approach “product discovery from the inside”.
“You want to build something that when you present to the customer, they say, ‘that’s a game-changer’,” he added.
Palantir said it pioneered the job almost two decades ago, with FDE’s now representing about half of its workforce. The concept stems from the military, where soldiers were forward deployed into foreign countries. Palantir has sent its FDEs to Afghan and Iraqi military bases, factory floors in the US midwest, as well as oil refineries.
The company often sends customers a pair of employees, dubbed internally as “Echo” and “Delta”. The former is charged with deducing what the customer needs, while the latter has the technical skills to create it.
Prettejohn said: “[Forward-deployed engineers] know that the only valuable software is not how exquisite its code is or how beautiful the language . . . It’s only valuable if it means something for the end customer.”
AI start-ups are hoping to emulate Palantir’s use of the role. Cohere’s co-founder and chief executive Aidan Gomez said deploying engineers at the beginning of the customer’s contract helps build long, durable relationships.
“We embed engineers at the start of work to ensure customers get exactly what they need and scale back once companies are up and running,” Gomez said.
While FDEs represent a relatively small number of AI groups’ workforce, OpenAI said demand for these roles has exceeded its expectations.
The group used this approach to customise its technology for John Deere, an agricultural machinery manufacturer, to help create more precise farming tools. This resulted in farmers reducing chemical spraying by 60 per cent to 70 per cent.
OpenAI’s Fournier said: “We learn what customers in different industries really need, we experiment and innovate together, and then those insights help advance OpenAI’s research and product offerings based on what works in the real world.”
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The European Commission is drawing up plans to expand central supervision over key financial markets infrastructure, including stock exchanges, crypto exchanges and clearing houses, in an effort to eliminate fragmentation in one of the single market’s core areas.
The move is part of a broader effort to bolster the EU competitiveness in relation to the US by ensuring that companies can access funding and scale up on the continent rather than across the Atlantic. The current landscape, with dozens of national and regional regulators and hundreds of trading and post-trading institutions, raises the costs for cross-border trades, a significant obstacle for start-ups to scale up in Europe.
A single supervisor modelled after the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US is seen as a significant step to completing the EU’s “capital markets union”. The move is backed by ECB President Christine Lagarde and her predecessor Mario Draghi, who mentioned this in a report he drafted last year on improving Europe’s competitiveness.
The commission has said it will put forward proposals in December for a “markets integration package”.
The most contentious idea is to expand the powers of the existing European Securities and Markets Authority (Esma) to also cover “the most significant cross-border entities”, including stock exchanges, crypto assets service providers, and post-trading infrastructure such as central clearing counterparties and central securities depositories, according to people briefed on the matter.
The commission will also call for Esma to have the last say on disputes between large asset managers. While not directly in charge of supervision, Esma would issue binding decisions in case of disputes between national supervisory authorities, the people said.
Central supervision has long been opposed by Berlin, but the government led by Chancellor Friedrich Merz has recently signalled openness and is exploring options together with France, a strong backer of the capital markets union. The Financial Times previously reported that the asset management industry was among the areas where the German government could envisage Esma supervision, but not crypto exchanges.
Other capitals, notably Luxembourg and Dublin, are still balking at the idea of handing over oversight powers to the Paris-based authority. They argue that the move could disadvantage their national financial sector, as they remain sceptical that EU regulators would act in the best interests of smaller nations.
“We would like to have [supervisory] convergence rather than creating a costly and ineffective centralised model,” said Gilles Roth, Luxembourg’s finance minister.
One European exchange group said it saw little benefit in shifting oversight of crypto assets service providers to Esma, citing a good working relationship with its national supervisor, and expressing concerns about higher compliance costs and potential Esma over-reach.
“Expanding Esma’s supervisory responsibilities would mean higher fees paid by the industry,” said Marin Capelle, policy adviser at Efama, the fund industry lobby.
The commission said it was “still exploring the potential of EU level supervision in relation to some critical infrastructures, such as central counterparties, central securities depositories and trading venues, as well as in relation to big cross-border entities such as asset managers”.
“We are considering different models for single supervision . . . from the perspective of balancing the EU interest with local expertise,” it added.
Additional reporting by Florian Müller in Frankfurt
The Full Moon is just around the corner, so there’s plenty of things to spot on the surface, with or without visual aids.
As of Sunday, Nov. 2, the moon phase is Waxing…
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Hoping to reinvent the way we view holiday homes, a new breed of co-ownership companies now offers the benefits of flexibility, variety and hassle-free fractional ownership within a freehold basis. August has more than 500 homeowners and manages 80 renovated properties across Europe. Its CEO Mélie Dunod claims that the average holiday home is used for just 35 days every year.
“Why own 100 per cent of an asset that you visit just 10 per cent of the time?” she asks. August’s co-ownership model gives you a choice of shared properties and locations, as well as regulated access to the calendar to pick your time away (shares from €700,000). “We’re real-estate matchmakers,” says Dunod.
The march of five-star branded residences continues, with a recent report from marketing agency Graham Associates indicating growth of almost 180 per cent in the past decade. It’s a sector predicted to more than double by 2031, but a lack of viable space in Paris has meant the major players have largely bypassed the capital. Until now. Among the vanguard is The Maybourne Residences Saint-Germain, a reinvention of the former Ministry of Defence across two creative streets of the Rive Gauche, which will create 23 luxury homes alongside a 101-key hotel (from €3.5mn for a one-bedroom residence at rue de l’Université).
The 17th-century buildings will be “re-concepted for the 21st century… to be the living room of Saint-Germain”, says Maybourne of the properties, which will provide owners with exclusive access to a 25m pool and hotel facilities that include six cafés and restaurants, and one of the city’s largest spas and health clubs, Surrenne, a sister to those at The Emory in London and The Maybourne Riviera.
One successful way to reinvent an area in need of a fillip is to designate it as a Design District. Miami is one blueprint, where real estate investor Craig Robins has transformed 18 low-level blocks of unprepossessing furniture depots into an art and architectural must-visit hub. The latest neighbourhood to get official Design District designation is Dumbo (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass).
An 1890s industrial area reinvented for 21st-century creatives and loft-loving tech bros, it has more than 150 design firms, showrooms and studios. When David Walentas, founder of Two Trees Management, bought two million square feet in this area in 1978 for $12mn, he had to entice early arrivals with free or heavily reduced rent. Today, penthouses sell for up to $17mn, Walentas is a billionaire and Dumbo is one of Brooklyn’s most expensive and desirable neighbourhoods. Available through Sphere Estates, this three-bedroom waterfront Dumbo apartment, for sale at $5.5mn, has views across the East River taking in Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges.
Say what you like about the Emirate – and plenty do – but its transformation from a 1960s fishing village into a global playground is a lesson in what ambition and barrels of oil money can achieve. In a world where wealth is ever more mobile, Dubai is an undisputed winner, says Jeremy Savory, co-founder and CEO of citizenship and residency investment firm Savory & Partners, who has reported a 41 per cent rise in Golden Visa applications over the past year.
The top of the market is booming too: Savills’ figures show that transactions in the Dh10mn-plus market (about £2mn) saw a tenfold rise over the past four years. Rosewood is the latest five-star brand to arrive, announcing plans for Rosewood Residences Dubai, 63 residences alongside a 195-key hotel on Jumeirah Beach. The apartments will be priced on average at $3,000 per sq ft.
Tuscany can seem little changed since Michelangelo picked up his paintbrush, thanks to the heavily protected landscape across this central Italian region. In fact, artful reinvention has saved innumerable historic estates and farmhouses from decay, turning them into desirable rural homes. The Ricasoli family, who have produced wine on their Chianti Classico Brolio Estate for centuries, were among the first to sell rundown estate farmhouses to foreign buyers 50 years ago.
This autumn they unveiled a further six unrestored homes for sale, exclusively through Knight Frank (from €1.8mn). “These farmhouses, including one that featured in Bernardo Bertolucci’s film Stealing Beauty, offer a rare opportunity to get a foothold in prime Chianti on a world-famous estate,” says Bill Thomson, chairman of Knight Frank’s Italian Network.
London’s successful reimagining of some of its classical landmarks into modern branded residences has been mirrored in the Spanish capital, where new developments in historic buildings by investment firm Persepolis include Banyan Tree Padilla Madrid Residences and SLS Madrid Infantas Residences. It’s also the city that designer Patricia Urquiola has chosen for her first Spanish mainland project: Casa Lamar Cedaceros 9 will have 22 one- to five-bedroom residences with five-star wellness and concierge services (from €2.3mn).
The timing could not be more fortuitous, with estate agency Lucas Fox reporting the number of international buyers up 80 per cent between mid-2022 and mid-2025. “Madrid is where the smart money is going,” says Marco Gramaglia from Lucas Fox. “No wealth tax, a thriving cultural scene and a lifestyle to match. With names like Soho House setting up shop, and seven five-star hotels opening since 2021, Madrid is not just on the rise, it’s front and centre.”