Job Check
Painting, Coating, and Decorating Workers
Paint, coat, or decorate articles, such as furniture, glass, plateware, pottery, jewelry, toys, books, or leather.
9 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Apply coatings, such as paint, ink, or lacquer, to protect or decorate workpiece surfaces, using spray guns, pens, or brushes.Mostly human for now
- 02Examine finished surfaces of workpieces to verify conformance to specifications and retouch any defective areas.Mostly human for now
- 03Clean and maintain tools and equipment, using solvents, brushes, and rags.Mostly human for now
- 04Read job orders and inspect workpieces to determine work procedures and materials required.Mostly human for now
- 05Select and mix ingredients to prepare coating substances according to specifications, using paddles or mechanical mixers.Mostly human for now
- 06Place coated workpieces in ovens or dryers for specified times to dry or harden finishes.Mostly human for now
- 07Clean surfaces of workpieces in preparation for coating, using cleaning fluids, solvents, brushes, scrapers, steam, sandpaper, or cloth.Mostly human for now
- 08Conceal blemishes in workpieces, such as nicks and dents, using fillers such as putty.Mostly human for now
- 09Rinse, drain, or wipe coated workpieces to remove excess coating material or to facilitate setting of finish coats on workpieces.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
0%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 78% 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.
- Apply coatings, such as paint, ink, or lacquer, to protect or decorate workpiece surfaces, using spray guns, pens, or brushes.
- Examine finished surfaces of workpieces to verify conformance to specifications and retouch any defective areas.
- Select and mix ingredients to prepare coating substances according to specifications, using paddles or mechanical mixers.