Michael Cortez
Founder and editor, AI Training Pay
Michael Cortez founded AI Training Pay at Hokuto Labs and edits every guide on it. He built it because AI training pay is hard to compare: platforms list ranges, ceilings and per-task rates, and most reviews don't show where their numbers come from.
He has spent nearly 20 years in digital marketing and search. He is a Partner and Director of Growth Marketing at Webfor, a digital marketing agency in Vancouver, Washington, a board member of SEMpdx, and a guest lecturer at Washington State University.
AI Training Pay is a Hokuto Labs product and is independent of Webfor and of every platform it covers.
How he works on this site
- Every pay figure comes from live public listings, computed by code that is tested, never typed in by hand. Methodology.
- Every claim about a platform links to a source, preferring court records and the platform's own pages; lawsuits are described as allegations until a court rules.
- Facts that can change (lawsuits, settlements, funding) carry a re-check date; an automatic daily check flags any that are due so they get re-verified.
- Published monthly reports are never silently edited: a correction is added as a labeled restatement next to the original figures.
Guides he wrote
- Outlier AI jobs (2026): what Outlier pays, how it works, and alternatives that list pay
- Handshake AI Fellowship (2026): pay, who gets in, and where it's available
- How to become an AI trainer in 2026
- The best AI training platforms, ranked by what they pay
- AI training interviews and assessments: what to expect and how to pass
- AI training jobs with no experience: what's real and what pays
- What is RLHF? The work behind it, explained for AI trainers