‘What’s your AI stack?’ The new job interview question you need to know how to answer

Snaring your next career opportunity just got tougher, but it doesn’t have to be an intractable challenge.

Read full bio October 13, 2026, 9:44 am ET

Curly_photo/Moment via Getty Images ZDNET’s key takeaways Managers are asking candidates about their AI skills. Interviewees must demonstrate a willingness to learn. Show how you can apply your knowledge to the role. Job interviews aren’t easy at the best of times. Sitting with a stranger and finding the right tone between modesty and boastfulness is anxiety-inducing. But now, in an age of AI, the interview process has become even tougher.

Companies already use AI to sift applications, so even reaching the interview stage can be more challenging than before. Yet AI is also becoming a core element of the interview process.

While your years of experience will help you get your foot in the door, your ability to look forward will get you the role. Rather than looking back, senior managers expect you to embrace the future.

Two senior technology executives mentioned to me informally in recent conversations that one of the key questions they now ask is, ‘What’s your personal AI stack?’

They suggested that candidates without a satisfactory answer would be unlikely to secure the role.

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The focus on emerging technology, said Tal Carmi, CIO at technology specialist WalkMe, means job seekers have only one option: embrace AI.

“If you are not in the AI game, I think that’s the biggest risk to your career,” he told ZDNET. “I don’t think there is a choice.”

Crucially, the question doesn’t just apply to IT professionals. Candidates across all lines of business will be expected to show an aptitude for AI and an interest in its continued evolution.

“People need to comprehend the scale of change,” he said. “It’s a capability you need to have, and many people are saying, ‘I’m not a technical person, or my role is not technical, so I don’t need to be in AI,’ and I think that’s wrong. AI today is everywhere.”

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For job seekers preparing for their next interview, the implication is clear — expect to be asked about your AI skills.

The good news is that business leaders suggest professionals can nail their answers by showing they embrace new AI services and understand the requirements of the organization they’re aiming to join.

Gill Haus, CIO at Chase, the consumer banking arm of JPMorganChase, told ZDNET that his organization has a robust interview process that touches on the types of AI technologies people use and how these models and tools can help the business evolve and grow.

The best candidates are working with AI, eager to explore new opportunities, and consider how emerging technology will be used in the workplace.

“The skills that are going to be even more important in the future, such as curiosity, the energy to learn new technologies, using the technologies on your own, and being proximate to them, are about showing one, you understand how to use AI today and how to apply it, and two, how you will continue on this journey as part of our organization.”

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Haus said AI will play a key role in long-term business processes, and job seekers will be expected to show interest in models and tools because they’re crucial to Chase.

“We do want them to use AI,” he said. “That’s why we make these tools available to our employees, and it is something that, when someone is joining the firm or coming in, we do want them to be using these kinds of technologies because we’re using them internally.”

Similarly, Sam Hood, global head of enterprise data platforms at asset management firm Schroders, said he asks candidates how they use AI rather than what their favorite tools are.

“I think that matters more to me — how they’re thinking,” he told ZDNET. “It’s about getting back to that key question: how smart people are working with AI to help free up time and take away tasks that they maybe didn’t enjoy doing.”

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Rather than drilling down into the details of their personal stack and their preference for ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini, Hood said he prefers to understand how professionals apply AI, regardless of the tools or models.

AI trends come and go. More important than using a specific AI tool today is showing that you recognize the market is in constant flux and that popular services will look very different tomorrow.

“I think the smartest way of doing it is looking at the models that are behind them and realizing that they all have strengths and weaknesses and making sure that someone’s using that tool in the right way that it was designed,” he said. “That’s probably where I get more value.”

Loïc Giraud, vice president of the data and AI foundation at pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, told ZDNET that he rarely asks professionals about their personal AI stack. Instead, he wants people to demonstrate their aptitude for excelling in his firm’s data-heavy environment.

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“I’ll ask about their proficiency in AI and their learning abilities,” he said. “In my opinion, you can transpose your technology proficiency into any stack. I’m looking for people with experience.”

Giraud said it’s important to recognize that gaining an in-depth understanding of long-term experience is far from straightforward. Gen AI and agentic AI are relatively new technologies.

Managers can’t ask someone about their 10 or 20 years of AI experience. However, managers can focus on how a candidate has used emerging technology so far. Job seekers should prepare to show how their capabilities suit the working environment.

“Our domain is a specialized area,” he said. “But you can look at the type of work they’ve been doing, and whether it’s actually deep or broad. That’s what interests me more.”

Josh Chandler, chief digital information officer at Bedfordshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, is another digital leader who mentioned depth and breadth, suggesting his healthcare organization is looking for people who can use digital and data to target priority areas, whether they relate to emerging technologies or not.

“The message that we’re talking through in a live discussion is that we see more of the AI opportunities in the organization as deep rather than broad,” he told ZDNET.

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As a digital leader at a cash-constrained public sector organization, Chandler recognizes that every penny spent on technology is money that can’t be spent elsewhere. Technology solutions must be proven, safe, and sustainable.

The message for job seekers is to show how you can apply your knowledge in a role. Not every organization will be at the cutting edge of innovation. Think carefully about how technology, including AI, can solve the challenges that the interviewer’s business faces.

“I think what we want within digital roles is a professional curiosity to explore any tools,” he said. “We’re more interested in that at the moment, more broadly. If AI or automation is one of the areas that excites our teams, we’re keen to encourage them to go into it, and we’ll give them some support and tools to do so.”