Job Check
Occupational Therapy Assistants
Assist occupational therapists in providing occupational therapy treatments and procedures. May, in accordance with state laws, assist in development of treatment plans, carry out routine functions, direct activity programs, and document the progress of treatments. Generally requires formal training.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Instruct, or assist in instructing, patients and families in home programs, basic living skills, or the care and use of adaptive equipment.Mostly human for now
- 02Maintain and promote a positive attitude toward clients and their treatment programs.Mostly human for now
- 03Report to supervisors, verbally or in writing, on patients' progress, attitudes, and behavior.AI could speed this up a lot
- 04Implement, or assist occupational therapists with implementing, treatment plans designed to help clients function independently.Mostly human for now
- 05Monitor patients' performance in therapy activities, providing encouragement.Mostly human for now
- 06Observe and record patients' progress, attitudes, and behavior and maintain this information in client records.AI could speed this up a lot
- 07Select therapy activities to fit patients' needs and capabilities.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 08Attend continuing education classes.AI could speed this up a lot
- 09Aid patients in dressing and grooming themselves.Mostly human for now
- 10Evaluate the daily living skills or capacities of clients with physical, developmental, or mental health disabilities.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
27%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 25% 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 40% 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.
- Instruct, or assist in instructing, patients and families in home programs, basic living skills, or the care and use of adaptive equipment.
- Maintain and promote a positive attitude toward clients and their treatment programs.
- Implement, or assist occupational therapists with implementing, treatment plans designed to help clients function independently.