Job Check
Occupational Therapists
Assess, plan, and organize rehabilitative programs that help build or restore vocational, homemaking, and daily living skills, as well as general independence, to persons with disabilities or developmental delays. Use therapeutic techniques, adapt the individual's environment, teach skills, and modify specific tasks that present barriers to the individual.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Test and evaluate patients' physical and mental abilities and analyze medical data to determine realistic rehabilitation goals for patients.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 02Complete and maintain necessary records.AI could speed this up a lot
- 03Plan, organize, and conduct occupational therapy programs in hospital, institutional, or community settings to help rehabilitate persons with disabilities because of illness, injury or psychological or developmental problems.Mostly human for now
- 04Plan and implement programs and social activities to help patients learn work or school skills and adjust to handicaps.Mostly human for now
- 05Select activities that will help individuals learn work and life-management skills within limits of their mental or physical capabilities.Mostly human for now
- 06Evaluate patients' progress and prepare reports that detail progress.AI could speed this up a lot
- 07Train caregivers in providing for the needs of a patient during and after therapy.Mostly human for now
- 08Lay out materials such as puzzles, scissors and eating utensils for use in therapy, and clean and repair these tools after therapy sessions.Mostly human for now
- 09Consult with rehabilitation team to select activity programs or coordinate occupational therapy with other therapeutic activities.Mostly human for now
- 10Design and create, or requisition, special supplies and equipment, such as splints, braces, and computer-aided adaptive equipment.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
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 loss1%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
30%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 32% 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 44% 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.
- Plan, organize, and conduct occupational therapy programs in hospital, institutional, or community settings to help rehabilitate persons with disabilities because of illness, injury or psychological or developmental problems.
- Plan and implement programs and social activities to help patients learn work or school skills and adjust to handicaps.
- Select activities that will help individuals learn work and life-management skills within limits of their mental or physical capabilities.