Job Check
Music Therapists
Plan, organize, direct, or assess clinical and evidenced-based music therapy interventions to positively influence individuals' physical, psychological, cognitive, or behavioral status.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Design or provide music therapy experiences to address client needs, such as using music for self-care, adjusting to life changes, improving cognitive functioning, raising self-esteem, communicating, or controlling impulses.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 02Design music therapy experiences, using various musical elements to meet client's goals or objectives.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 03Sing or play musical instruments, such as keyboard, guitar, or percussion instruments.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 04Communicate with clients to build rapport, acknowledge their progress, or reflect upon their reactions to musical experiences.Mostly human for now
- 05Customize treatment programs for specific areas of music therapy, such as intellectual or developmental disabilities, educational settings, geriatrics, medical settings, mental health, physical disabilities, or wellness.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 06Establish client goals or objectives for music therapy treatment, considering client needs, capabilities, interests, overall therapeutic program, coordination of treatment, or length of treatment.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 07Document evaluations, treatment plans, case summaries, or progress or other reports related to individual clients or client groups.AI could speed this up a lot
- 08Assess client functioning levels, strengths, and areas of need in terms of perceptual, sensory, affective, communicative, musical, physical, cognitive, social, spiritual, or other abilities.Mostly human for now
- 09Observe and document client reactions, progress, or other outcomes related to music therapy.AI could speed this up a lot
- 10Improvise instrumentally, vocally, or physically to meet client's therapeutic needs.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 loss4%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
43%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 29% 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.
- Communicate with clients to build rapport, acknowledge their progress, or reflect upon their reactions to musical experiences.
- Assess client functioning levels, strengths, and areas of need in terms of perceptual, sensory, affective, communicative, musical, physical, cognitive, social, spiritual, or other abilities.
- Improvise instrumentally, vocally, or physically to meet client's therapeutic needs.