Job Check
Paving, Surfacing, and Tamping Equipment Operators
Operate equipment used for applying concrete, asphalt, or other materials to road beds, parking lots, or airport runways and taxiways or for tamping gravel, dirt, or other materials. Includes concrete and asphalt paving machine operators, form tampers, tamping machine operators, and stone spreader operators.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Start machine, engage clutch, and push and move levers to guide machine along forms or guidelines and to control the operation of machine attachments.Mostly human for now
- 02Fill tanks, hoppers, or machines with paving materials.Mostly human for now
- 03Control paving machines to push dump trucks and to maintain a constant flow of asphalt or other material into hoppers or screeds.Mostly human for now
- 04Observe distribution of paving material to adjust machine settings or material flow, and indicate low spots for workers to add material.Mostly human for now
- 05Coordinate truck dumping.Mostly human for now
- 06Drive machines onto truck trailers, and drive trucks to transport machines and material to and from job sites.Mostly human for now
- 07Inspect, clean, maintain, and repair equipment, using mechanics' hand tools, or report malfunctions to supervisors.Mostly human for now
- 08Set up and tear down equipment.Mostly human for now
- 09Operate machines to spread, smooth, level, or steel-reinforce stone, concrete, or asphalt on road beds.Mostly human for now
- 10Light burners or start heating units of machines, and regulate screed temperatures and asphalt flow rates.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 1% 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 99% 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.
- Start machine, engage clutch, and push and move levers to guide machine along forms or guidelines and to control the operation of machine attachments.
- Fill tanks, hoppers, or machines with paving materials.
- Control paving machines to push dump trucks and to maintain a constant flow of asphalt or other material into hoppers or screeds.