Job Check
Coating, Painting, and Spraying Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders
Set up, operate, or tend spraying or rolling machines to coat or paint any of a wide variety of products, including glassware, cloth, ceramics, metal, plastic, paper, or wood, with lacquer, silver, copper, rubber, varnish, glaze, enamel, oil, or rust-proofing materials. Includes painters of transportation vehicles such as painters in auto body repair facilities.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Dispose of hazardous waste in an appropriate manner.Mostly human for now
- 02Hold or position spray guns to direct spray onto articles.Mostly human for now
- 03Spray prepared surfaces with specified amounts of primers and decorative or finish coatings.Mostly human for now
- 04Monitor painting operations to identify flaws, such as blisters or streaks, and correct their causes.Mostly human for now
- 05Disassemble, clean, and reassemble sprayers or power equipment, using solvents, wire brushes, and cloths.Mostly human for now
- 06Fill hoppers, reservoirs, troughs, or pans with material used to coat, paint, or spray, using conveyors or pails.Mostly human for now
- 07Clean equipment and work areas.Mostly human for now
- 08Apply rust-resistant undercoats and caulk and seal seams.Mostly human for now
- 09Start and stop operation of machines, using levers or buttons.Mostly human for now
- 10Determine paint flow, viscosity, and coating quality by performing visual inspections, or by using viscometers.Mostly human for now
Tasks from O*NET® 31.0 (US Department of Labor, CC BY 4.0, changed by us), most important first. “Already use” comes from Anthropic’s data on real work chats with Claude; “could speed up” from task ratings made with GPT-4 in 2023.
Four studies, side by side
None is a forecast of job lossToo little dataNot enough work use was seen to measure. This does not mean the job is safe from AI.Anthropic, 2026
4%of this job’s tasks an AI model could do in half the time, counting tasks that need extra tools as half (rated in 2023).Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock, 2023
Above 10% of jobsin how often and how well AI helped with this job’s work in Microsoft Copilot chats (2024 data).Microsoft Research (Tomlinson et al.), 2025
Above 88% of jobsin how much of this job’s physical work robots have been shown to do, from factories to homes (2026).Anthropic, 2026
Your human edge
The main tasks with no real AI use seen and no big speed-up expected. This is where your skill counts most today.
- Dispose of hazardous waste in an appropriate manner.
- Hold or position spray guns to direct spray onto articles.
- Spray prepared surfaces with specified amounts of primers and decorative or finish coatings.