Job Check
Historians
Research, analyze, record, and interpret the past as recorded in sources, such as government and institutional records, newspapers and other periodicals, photographs, interviews, films, electronic media, and unpublished manuscripts, such as personal diaries and letters.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Gather historical data from sources such as archives, court records, diaries, news files, and photographs, as well as from books, pamphlets, and periodicals.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 02Organize data, and analyze and interpret its authenticity and relative significance.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 03Prepare publications and exhibits, or review those prepared by others, to ensure their historical accuracy.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 04Organize information for publication and for other means of dissemination, such as via storage media or the Internet.AI could speed this up a lot
- 05Conduct historical research as a basis for the identification, conservation, and reconstruction of historic places and materials.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 06Conserve and preserve manuscripts, records, and other artifacts.Mostly human for now
- 07Present historical accounts in terms of individuals or social, ethnic, political, economic, or geographic groupings.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 08Research the history of a particular country or region, or of a specific time period.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 09Conduct historical research, and publish or present findings and theories.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 10Determine which topics to research, or pursue research topics specified by clients or employers.People already use AI for this at work
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 loss3%of this job’s work time goes to tasks that people already do with Claude at work, counting tasks where AI only helps as half (2026).Anthropic, 2026
47%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 100% 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
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.
- Conserve and preserve manuscripts, records, and other artifacts.