AI work rarely sticks to a nine-to-five schedule. Models need monitoring, data pipelines can fail overnight, agents can produce unexpected results, and development work often stretches across teams and markets. A follow the sun model helps companies cover that work across time zones by passing responsibility between global teams as each region starts and ends its workday.
For companies investing heavily in AI, international teams can provide access to specialized skills while keeping projects and AI operations moving outside typical U.S. business hours.
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What Is a Follow the Sun Model?
A follow the sun model distributes work across teams in different time zones. As one team’s day winds down, another team picks up the work during its normal business hours.
For AI teams, that could mean engineers in the U.S. documenting an unresolved issue before colleagues in another region continue the investigation. An overnight team might monitor an AI application, flag unusual behavior, or address a data pipeline problem before the U.S. team is back online.
The concept is fairly straightforward, but companies need to work through several practical details before putting it in place. They have to decide what each location owns, what information needs to travel with the work, which decisions require escalation, and what employees in each region are authorized to do.
Why 24/7 AI Capabilities Need a Global Workforce Strategy
The people needed to build and support AI systems are in demand. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment for data scientists to grow 33.5% between 2024 and 2034. Software developer employment is projected to grow 15.8%, adding approximately 267,700 jobs during the same period.
Companies also have a large and growing international developer community to draw from. According to GitHub’s 2025 Octoverse report, over 36 million developers joined GitHub in 2025, bringing the platform’s developer population above 180 million. India alone added over five million developers that year, accounting for over 14% of new accounts.
For companies struggling to find enough AI talent locally, that international developer base significantly widens the hiring pool. Companies can recruit based on the skills they need while also considering how employees’ working hours fit into the larger delivery model.
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Where a Follow the Sun Model Fits Into AI Operations
Not every AI task needs someone to watch it around the clock. Start with work where waiting until tomorrow morning could slow a project, extend an outage, or leave an important issue unresolved.
Depending on the company’s AI environment, that could include:
- Monitoring AI systems in production
- Investigating model or application incidents
- Maintaining data pipelines
- Performing data quality and validation work
- Testing models and AI-enabled applications
- Reviewing flagged outputs that require human judgment
- Maintaining cloud infrastructure and integrations
- Supporting software development around AI products
The same approach can keep development work moving between regions. A team in one location can finish a piece of work and hand it to another team for testing, review, troubleshooting, or continued development.
For that to work, teams need clear ownership and a shared process for passing work from one location to another.
How to Build a Follow the Sun Model for AI
Before deciding where to hire, companies need to understand which work needs coverage and what skills are required to handle it.
Start With the Work, Then Choose the Locations
Time zones shouldn’t determine locations on their own. Identify the AI work that needs extended coverage and the skills required, then look for talent markets that fit.
Consider talent availability, working hours, language requirements, cost, and any legal or regulatory restrictions associated with the work.
Choose Talent Markets That Work Well Together
The World Economic Forum’s Future of Jobs Report 2025 found that 86% of surveyed employers expect AI and information-processing technologies to affect their businesses by 2030, with AI and big data among the fastest-growing skills.
A follow the sun model can combine teams across the Americas, Europe, and Asia based on where the right skills are available and when coverage is needed. Each location should have enough expertise to handle the work assigned to it.
Make Handoffs Easy to Pick Up
Handoffs should give the next team enough context to continue working without retracing the previous team’s steps. At minimum, document the current status, work already completed, known blockers, next action, and who owns the decision.
Complex issues may benefit from a short overlap between teams, while routine work can often move through documented handoffs.
Define What Each Team Can Do
Employees need to know whether they’re expected to monitor an issue, investigate it, make a change, or escalate it.
NIST’s AI Risk Management Framework addresses risk management throughout the AI lifecycle, while the EU AI Act includes human oversight requirements for high-risk AI systems. Each global team should have documented responsibilities and clear boundaries around the decisions its employees can make.
Use Time Zones to Extend Coverage Without Extending Workdays
A follow the sun model should use geography to provide extended coverage without routinely asking employees to work overnight. If an AI application needs attention at 2 a.m. Eastern Time, that responsibility can sit with a team already within its normal working day.
Teams may still need some overlap for handoffs and collaboration, but around-the-clock coverage shouldn’t require around-the-clock schedules for individual employees.
Where Follow the Sun Models Can Break Down
Every time work changes hands, some context can get lost.
An overnight team may know an issue exists but lack permission to fix it. A different region may have fewer senior engineers, causing harder problems to pile up until the U.S. team returns. Teams may document work differently enough that each group wastes time piecing together what happened earlier.
Common problems include:
- Weak handoffs: Incoming teams don’t receive enough information to continue the work efficiently.
- Uneven skills across regions: Complex problems consistently get pushed back to one location.
- Unclear decision rights: Employees can identify an issue but don’t know whether they have authority to act.
- Too much schedule overlap: Employees still spend significant time working outside their normal hours.
- Inconsistent processes: Teams use different documentation, tools, or escalation practices.
If an overnight team is expected to resolve complex technical problems, that region needs people with enough experience and authority to handle those problems.
How Do You Know if a Follow the Sun Model Is Working?
Having someone online around the clock doesn’t necessarily mean work is making progress around the clock. A better measure is whether an issue that appears at 3 a.m. can make meaningful progress before the primary U.S. team returns.
Look at what happens when ownership changes hands. How often does the incoming team need additional context? How quickly are incidents acknowledged and resolved? Does unfinished work repeatedly return to the same region? Are employees regularly pulled into meetings or escalations outside their normal hours?
If complex issues consistently end up waiting for one team or location, the model may need deeper expertise, clearer decision rights, or stronger handoff processes in other regions.
Build the Global Team Behind 24/7 AI
A follow the sun model requires the right people in each market, but it also depends on how those teams are structured, connected, and supported. Companies need a clear plan for where work happens, which skills sit in each region, and how global teams support AI operations across time zones.
Insight Global can help companies put that plan into action through talent solutions, consulting, and global capabilities. Whether you need specialized AI and data talent, cloud and cybersecurity expertise, or help building and scaling global teams, we can support the people and delivery needs behind 24/7 AI operations.
Ready to build global AI capabilities around your business needs? Connect with Insight Global to explore the talent solutions and consulting support that can help you get there.
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