Hive AI
Broad/Unclear specialization
Quick facts
- Company
- Hive AI
- Service type
- Data annotation / AI training data
- Specialties
- Image, Text
- Hiring status
- Both: hires workers and takes vendor projects
- Website
- thehive.ai
- Careers
- Unavailable
- Profile last verified
- 2026-01-29
Application process overview
Hive AI (thehive.ai) is a San Francisco-based enterprise AI company offering pre-trained models and a fully-managed data labeling service for content moderation, object recognition, and generative AI. It engages annotators through Hive Micro, a crowdsourcing platform with more than 2 million registered contributors who complete piece-rate tasks.
Key findings
Application Process: Sign up at hivemicro.com with email; minimal barriers to join the global contributor pool.<br><br>Assessments: Short qualification tests and task-specific tutorials gate access to each job; quality scores control ongoing eligibility.<br><br>Job Types / Expertise: Image/video labeling, bounding boxes, content moderation, transcription, categorization, and AI output rating. Most tasks require no specialized expertise.<br><br>Compensation: Piece-rate, paid per 1000 tasks completed. Rates vary widely from ~$0.25 per 1000 for simple categorization up to ~$200 per 1000 for complex annotation. Payouts via PayPal or Bitcoin after a $10 threshold.<br><br>Flexibility: Fully remote, work-anytime micro-task model with no shifts or minimums.<br><br>Challenges / Concerns: Effective hourly pay is often very low; task availability is inconsistent; some users report denied payments or strict quality rejections.<br><br>Legitimacy: Legitimate, venture-backed company (raised $85M+); Hive's enterprise clients include major content platforms. Worker side is clearly supplementary income rather than a living wage.
Conclusion
Hive AI is a credible enterprise AI business whose Hive Micro crowdsourcing arm offers flexible, low-barrier piece-rate work to a global pool of contributors. Pay is highly variable and often modest on a per-hour basis, so it is best treated as side income rather than a primary job. Legitimacy is well-established and payouts flow through PayPal or Bitcoin, though some contributors report disputes. The model suits people who want to pick up AI training tasks on their own schedule. Expect inconsistent task flow and significant variation in effective hourly rates.