TEANECK, N.J. — Teaneck-based tech giant Cognizant is looking for 1,500 new college graduates to help build the next generation of artificial intelligence jobs.

The company announced the hiring push Sept. 7, saying it plans to bring on graduates from universities across the country for AI-focused positions.

Cognizant is also building a new class of AI workers called Frontier Certified Engineers and Frontier Business Operators. The company plans to grow that workforce to 15,000 people.

“We are hiring American graduates, standing up new American job categories for the AI era and putting Cognizant’s capital and leadership behind a national coalition built to make sure this transition works for workers,” CEO Ravi Kumar S said.

The message from the Teaneck company is clear: AI does not have to mean fewer jobs.

“We believe AI will create significantly more jobs than it displaces and shift greater value, wages and accountability to the frontlines of America’s workforce,” Kumar said.

For New Jersey graduates, Cognizant says it is working through the Handshake career platform with students and graduates from schools including Rutgers, Princeton, Seton Hall, Stevens Institute of Technology, NJIT, Montclair State, Ramapo, Rowan, Rider, William Paterson and The College of New Jersey.

The company is also working with universities around the country, including the University of Georgia, Arizona State University and the University of Kentucky.

Cognizant says its broader training program has already trained more than 1 million people through its Synapse initiative. The company has now doubled its goal and plans to train 2 million people by 2030.

The Teaneck company is also part of RAISE US, a bipartisan national coalition focused on helping American workers prepare for the AI economy. The group was launched by former Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and former Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb and aims to mobilize $1 billion for worker retraining and new training programs.

But Cognizant's AI work is not limited to the United States.

The company has made Israel's technology sector a focus of its own research, highlighting Tel Aviv as a major center for cybersecurity and innovation and describing the country's technology ecosystem as “Silicon Wadi.”

More recently, Cognizant sponsored the 2026 ServiceNow AI Summit in Tel Aviv, where the company participated in discussions about putting AI to work in business. Cognizant said it was joined at the event by Israeli pharmaceutical giant Teva.

Back home, the company says its new AI-trained workers are already being put to work.

In one example, Cognizant says a team helped a major food-service company turn part of its account-management operation into 17 AI agents, freeing roughly 11 hours a week for each account manager.

Kumar says the future will belong to workers who know how to use the technology.

“The AI economy will be built by people who know how to work with AI, not by AI alone,” he said.

For the Teaneck company, that future is already becoming a hiring plan.