Job Check
Preschool Teachers, Except Special Education
Instruct preschool-aged students, following curricula or lesson plans, in activities designed to promote social, physical, and intellectual growth.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Teach basic skills, such as color, shape, number and letter recognition, personal hygiene, and social skills.Mostly human for now
- 02Establish and enforce rules for behavior and procedures for maintaining order.Mostly human for now
- 03Adapt teaching methods and instructional materials to meet students' varying needs and interests.People already use AI for this at work
- 04Provide a variety of materials and resources for children to explore, manipulate, and use, both in learning activities and in imaginative play.Mostly human for now
- 05Serve meals and snacks in accordance with nutritional guidelines.Mostly human for now
- 06Attend to children's basic needs by feeding them, dressing them, and changing their diapers.Mostly human for now
- 07Meet with parents and guardians to discuss their children's progress and needs, determine their priorities for their children, and suggest ways that they can promote learning and development.Mostly human for now
- 08Organize and lead activities designed to promote physical, mental, and social development, such as games, arts and crafts, music, storytelling, and field trips.Mostly human for now
- 09Identify children showing signs of emotional, developmental, or health-related problems and discuss them with supervisors, parents or guardians, and child development specialists.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 10Maintain accurate and complete student records as required by laws, district policies, and administrative regulations.AI could speed this up a lot
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
23%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 54% 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 50% 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.
- Teach basic skills, such as color, shape, number and letter recognition, personal hygiene, and social skills.
- Establish and enforce rules for behavior and procedures for maintaining order.
- Provide a variety of materials and resources for children to explore, manipulate, and use, both in learning activities and in imaginative play.