Occupation index

AI displacement risk by occupation

Job titles are too broad to explain AI displacement. This index compares roles by task exposure, automation potential, augmentation potential, median wage, and adjacent transition paths.

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Each role page is generated from the same evidence-tracked occupation model used by the lens.

Data Entry Keyers

Routine structured entry, duplicate checks, and record transfer are highly exposed to direct automation. The strongest transition path moves workers from keystroke volume into data quality, exception handling, and workflow support.

Exposure: 92
Automation: 78%
Augment: 18%

Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks

Invoice matching, reconciliations, and routine reporting are exposed to automation. Judgment around controls, vendor context, audit trails, and anomaly escalation can become more valuable.

Exposure: 78
Automation: 59%
Augment: 34%

Customer Service Representatives

Scripted inquiries, routing, and knowledge-base answers are highly exposed. Complex escalation, retention, empathy, and account context remain the transition anchors.

Exposure: 73
Automation: 57%
Augment: 39%

Market Research Analysts

Summarization, draft segmentation, and desk research are exposed, but domain judgment, study design, stakeholder context, and synthesis make this a strong augmentation case.

Exposure: 54
Automation: 37%
Augment: 61%

Software Developers

Code generation changes the junior task bundle, but architecture, debugging, security, product judgment, and system ownership keep the role augmentation-heavy.

Exposure: 63
Automation: 29%
Augment: 74%

Registered Nurses

Documentation and administrative follow-up can change quickly, but hands-on care, clinical judgment, licensing, and patient trust constrain direct replacement.

Exposure: 28
Automation: 13%
Augment: 46%

Elementary School Teachers

Lesson prep, differentiated materials, and feedback loops are augmentable. Classroom management, care, student relationships, and local accountability remain central.

Exposure: 22
Automation: 10%
Augment: 52%

Machinists

Physical production limits pure software substitution, while setup optimization, maintenance planning, and quality analytics can augment skilled operators.

Exposure: 35
Automation: 22%
Augment: 33%

Paralegals and Legal Assistants

Document review, drafting, and research are exposed to AI assistance, while case context, client communication, attorney supervision, and jurisdiction-specific process remain important anchors.

Exposure: 71
Automation: 48%
Augment: 55%

Human Resources Specialists

Resume screening, policy answers, and first-draft communications can be automated or augmented, but employee relations, hiring judgment, trust, and process design keep the role human-centered.

Exposure: 58
Automation: 35%
Augment: 59%

Graphic Designers

Asset variation, layout drafts, and production design are exposed, while brand judgment, creative direction, client interpretation, and systems thinking become more important.

Exposure: 64
Automation: 42%
Augment: 63%

Electricians

Hands-on installation, safety, code compliance, and field troubleshooting make direct AI replacement unlikely, while estimating, diagnostics, and documentation can improve with tools.

Exposure: 18
Automation: 7%
Augment: 31%

Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing

Lead research, outreach drafts, and CRM updates are augmentable, but territory knowledge, negotiation, trust, and account strategy remain central.

Exposure: 49
Automation: 28%
Augment: 57%

Retail Salespersons

Product questions, checkout, inventory lookup, and scripted service can be augmented or automated. In-person trust, merchandising judgment, local customer knowledge, and service recovery remain important anchors.

Exposure: 56
Automation: 34%
Augment: 42%

Fast Food and Counter Workers

Kiosk ordering, drive-through voice systems, scheduling tools, and prep automation can reduce routine counter work. Reliability, shift leadership, food safety, and customer recovery remain more resilient.

Exposure: 47
Automation: 39%
Augment: 24%

Medical Assistants

Scheduling, chart preparation, and patient messaging can be augmented. Hands-on care, rooming patients, vital signs, specimen handling, and local clinical protocols keep the role comparatively resilient.

Exposure: 38
Automation: 18%
Augment: 49%

Project Management Specialists

Status reporting, meeting summaries, dependency tracking, and draft plans are strong augmentation cases. Human negotiation, sequencing, tradeoff calls, and stakeholder trust remain the core value.

Exposure: 51
Automation: 22%
Augment: 66%

Information Security Analysts

Alert triage, report drafting, detection tuning, and policy review can be accelerated by AI. Accountability, incident command, adversarial reasoning, and environment-specific context keep the role resilient.

Exposure: 48
Automation: 24%
Augment: 72%

Cashiers

Transaction scanning, payment handling, price lookup, and routine customer routing are highly exposed to self-checkout, kiosks, and computer vision workflows. Service recovery, trust, store knowledge, and shift reliability remain the strongest anchors.

Exposure: 64
Automation: 58%
Augment: 18%

Receptionists and Information Clerks

Appointment scheduling, call routing, visitor instructions, and routine intake are exposed to AI agents and workflow software. Trust, escalation judgment, local context, and office operations coordination remain defensible.

Exposure: 70
Automation: 51%
Augment: 40%

Secretaries and Administrative Assistants

Calendar management, drafting, formatting, travel planning, note summaries, and routine follow-ups are exposed to AI assistants. Executive context, prioritization, confidentiality, and process ownership remain the transition anchors.

Exposure: 76
Automation: 55%
Augment: 48%

Writers and Authors

Drafting, summarization, outlines, headlines, product copy, and content variations are highly exposed to generative AI. Original reporting, taste, editorial judgment, audience trust, and subject-matter expertise become more important.

Exposure: 88
Automation: 54%
Augment: 74%

Interpreters and Translators

Text translation, captioning, and routine localization are highly exposed to machine translation and speech systems. Live interpretation, legal/medical nuance, cultural adaptation, and quality review remain more defensible.

Exposure: 84
Automation: 61%
Augment: 58%

Loan Officers

Application intake, document review, credit summaries, and routine eligibility checks are exposed to automated underwriting. Relationship management, exception judgment, compliance, and borrower trust remain important.

Exposure: 68
Automation: 46%
Augment: 54%

Stockers and Order Fillers

Picking routes, inventory lookup, replenishment priorities, and warehouse slotting are increasingly shaped by software and robotics. Physical execution, exception handling, safety, and equipment operation remain important.

Exposure: 42
Automation: 36%
Augment: 28%

Accountants and Auditors

Transaction coding, reconciliation review, and first-draft reporting are increasingly handled by AI inside accounting platforms. Advisory judgment, controls ownership, attestation, and client communication remain the durable core, so the role is reshaping toward review and assurance rather than disappearing.

Exposure: 67
Automation: 38%
Augment: 62%

Financial Analysts

Data gathering, model maintenance, and first-draft commentary compress sharply under AI assistance. The role tilts toward framing questions, challenging model output, and defending recommendations to decision-makers, which raises the bar for junior entry while augmenting experienced analysts.

Exposure: 62
Automation: 31%
Augment: 69%

Tax Preparers

Standard individual returns are the textbook case for document-driven automation: intake, classification, and form preparation are increasingly completed by software with AI review. Complex filings, representation, and planning conversations are where human preparers retain clear value.

Exposure: 81
Automation: 64%
Augment: 38%

Claims Adjusters, Examiners, and Investigators

Document review, damage estimation from photos, and routine claim decisions are moving into automated pipelines. Contested claims, fraud investigation, catastrophe response, and empathetic communication during loss remain strongly human, so the role concentrates into its hardest cases.

Exposure: 70
Automation: 47%
Augment: 53%

Insurance Underwriters

Personal-lines risk scoring is already largely algorithmic, and AI extends that reach into small-commercial underwriting. Complex commercial, specialty, and excess lines still depend on negotiated judgment, broker relationships, and portfolio strategy, which is where underwriters should move.

Exposure: 74
Automation: 52%
Augment: 50%

Computer Programmers

Writing code to someone else's specification is exactly what AI coding tools now do well, and BLS projected this occupation to decline even before modern code generation. The defensible move is up the stack: owning design, integration, review, and outcomes rather than implementation alone.

Exposure: 72
Automation: 49%
Augment: 61%

Web Developers

Template sites, simple storefronts, and routine page builds are increasingly produced by AI site builders, squeezing the low end of the market. Value consolidates in product engineering, performance, accessibility, integrations, and owning outcomes for businesses rather than pages.

Exposure: 68
Automation: 42%
Augment: 66%

Software Quality Assurance Analysts and Testers

Manual regression passes and routine test-case writing are heavily exposed as AI generates tests and exercises applications directly. Quality strategy, risk-based judgment about what to test, and owning release confidence are the durable layer, pushing QA toward engineering and away from execution.

Exposure: 69
Automation: 45%
Augment: 64%

Computer User Support Specialists

Password resets, how-to questions, and known-issue triage are moving to AI assistants that resolve tickets before they reach a human. Hands-on hardware, escalations, endpoint security, and judgment calls in messy environments keep the human tier, which shifts the job toward harder tickets and systems work.

Exposure: 66
Automation: 44%
Augment: 55%

Technical Writers

First-draft documentation, release notes, and reference material now generate quickly from specs and code. What endures is information architecture, accuracy verification against real systems, audience judgment, and owning documentation as a product, which moves writers toward docs engineering and content strategy.

Exposure: 78
Automation: 50%
Augment: 65%

Editors

Copyediting, style enforcement, and routine line edits are well within AI capability, and generative drafting changes what arrives on an editor's desk. Editorial judgment — deciding what is worth publishing, shaping arguments, managing writers, and owning standards — concentrates value at the top of the craft.

Exposure: 76
Automation: 48%
Augment: 66%

News Analysts, Reporters, and Journalists

Commodity coverage — earnings recaps, sports scores, weather, aggregation — is already automated, and AI summarization erodes rewrite work. Original reporting, sourced investigation, access journalism, and accountable verification remain human work that machines cannot do without the relationships behind it.

Exposure: 71
Automation: 42%
Augment: 64%

Heavy and Tractor-Trailer Truck Drivers

Autonomous trucking is live on limited freight corridors, but full substitution is gated by weather, regulation, liability, first-mile and last-mile complexity, and decades of fleet turnover. Near-term, AI changes dispatch, routing, and monitoring more than it removes drivers, with hub-to-hub corridors automating first.

Exposure: 38
Automation: 27%
Augment: 35%

Real Estate Sales Agents

Listing descriptions, market comps, scheduling, and lead qualification are automating quickly, and AI search changes how buyers discover homes. The transaction's emotional weight, negotiation, local knowledge, and licensed accountability keep agents central — but commission pressure and fewer, more productive agents are the realistic trajectory.

Exposure: 52
Automation: 28%
Augment: 58%

Tellers

Routine transactions left for apps and ATMs years ago, and AI assistants now absorb the service questions that justified remaining branch staff. Banks are converting teller lines into advisory roles, so the realistic path is upward into banker, lending, or operations tracks rather than defending the window.

Exposure: 72
Automation: 58%
Augment: 30%