Not necessarily. If its an AI researcher type role (or) if its a very large company you might see a significant preference for Masters and PhD candidates.
Many times these companies will look at undergrads if they demonstrate capability and achievement. Typically, it takes a combination of the following:
- Upper div coursework or masters level coursework in AI/ML
- AI/ML research experience (Berkeley has BAIR and Stanford has SAIL)
- Competitive forecasting chops - Akuna Quant Trading, Metaculus forecasting etc.
- Math competitions - Putnam et al.
- AI research internships - my S22 did AI model research for Scale AI part-time his entire junior year
Also there is a difference between traditional AI/ML jobs and Gen AI jobs. Gen AI jobs span the spectrum of fundamental model research to orchestration product development to agentic application development. Unless you are doing foundational research, there is no real need for MS or PhD. Still some companies will overstate the qualifications needed for various reasons.