Job Check
Rotary Drill Operators, Oil and Gas
Set up or operate a variety of drills to remove underground oil and gas, or remove core samples for testing during oil and gas exploration.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Train crews, and introduce procedures to make drill work more safe and effective.Mostly human for now
- 02Observe pressure gauge and move throttles and levers to control the speed of rotary tables, and to regulate pressure of tools at bottoms of boreholes.Mostly human for now
- 03Maintain records of footage drilled, location and nature of strata penetrated, materials and tools used, services rendered, and time required.AI could speed this up a lot
- 04Push levers and brake pedals to control gasoline, diesel, electric, or steam draw works that lower and raise drill pipes and casings in and out of wells.Mostly human for now
- 05Connect sections of drill pipe, using hand tools and powered wrenches and tongs.Mostly human for now
- 06Count sections of drill rod to determine depths of boreholes.Mostly human for now
- 07Maintain and adjust machinery to ensure proper performance.Mostly human for now
- 08Direct rig crews in drilling and other activities, such as setting up rigs and completing or servicing wells.Mostly human for now
- 09Weigh clay, and mix with water and chemicals to make drilling mud.Mostly human for now
- 10Start and examine operation of slush pumps to ensure circulation and consistency of drilling fluid or mud in well.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
5%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 13% 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 96% 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.
- Train crews, and introduce procedures to make drill work more safe and effective.
- Observe pressure gauge and move throttles and levers to control the speed of rotary tables, and to regulate pressure of tools at bottoms of boreholes.
- Push levers and brake pedals to control gasoline, diesel, electric, or steam draw works that lower and raise drill pipes and casings in and out of wells.