Job Check
Physicians, Pathologists
Diagnose diseases and conduct lab tests using organs, body tissues, and fluids. Includes medical examiners.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Examine microscopic samples to identify diseases or other abnormalities.People already use AI for this at work
- 02Diagnose diseases or study medical conditions, using techniques such as gross pathology, histology, cytology, cytopathology, clinical chemistry, immunology, flow cytometry, or molecular biology.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 03Write pathology reports summarizing analyses, results, and conclusions.AI could speed this up a lot
- 04Communicate pathologic findings to surgeons or other physicians.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 05Identify the etiology, pathogenesis, morphological change, and clinical significance of diseases.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 06Read current literature, talk with colleagues, or participate in professional organizations or conferences to keep abreast of developments in pathology.People already use AI for this at work
- 07Consult with physicians about ordering and interpreting tests or providing treatments.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 08Analyze and interpret results from tests, such as microbial or parasite tests, urine analyses, hormonal assays, fine needle aspirations (FNAs), and polymerase chain reactions (PCRs).AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 09Review cases by analyzing autopsies, laboratory findings, or case investigation reports.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 10Manage medical laboratories.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 loss16%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
47%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 40% 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
AI touches every main task of this job in some way. Your edge is judgment: knowing when AI’s work is right, and checking it before it counts.