Blend360

Blend is scaling its 500-strong senior Forward Deployed AI Engineer (FDE) tier by 50% to meet accelerating enterprise demand for production AI , building on a delivery model that embeds its engineers inside client environments. COLUMBIA, Md. , Aug. 20, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Blend360 , a premier AI services provider serving Fortune 1000 enterprises, today announced that it plans to grow its Forward Deployed AI Engineer (FDE) force to 750 by 2027, a 50% increase that puts senior engineers on the work of moving AI from pilots into production. Blend fields 500 FDEs today, half of its 1,000-person global AI engineering and science organization.

The growth accelerates Blend's core operating model: in the vast majority of client engagements, Blend's engineers work embedded directly within client environments, behind the firewall and accountable for outcomes. There is no handoff between the people who design a solution and those who build it. Blend's growing force of FDEs represents the most senior tier within that model: the engineers who lead Blend's highest-stakes engagements and architect solutions. They work to a defined Blend methodology that starts with short, hands-on engagements producing measurable time savings in place of traditional discovery, then scales into either operational AI enablement or a full system build.

The expansion from 500 to 750 FDEs will come through Blend's proprietary ForwardAI Academy, aggressive hiring globally, and targeted acquisitions. Blend has deployed its FDE tier this way for years, through ForwardAI Academy: senior, platform-certified engineers rather than early-career hires. They work alongside client teams on live Fortune 1000 engagements, where client outcomes are the measure. Every engineer in the tier is certified in AI engineering. "There is a widening gap between how fast the frontier AI companies are moving and how fast enterprises can actually put that technology to work.

Closing that deployment gap takes senior engineering talent that knows how to get AI into production inside a real business, with real constraints and real stakes. That's what our FDEs bring, and it's why we're growing that capability over the next two years.