Job Check
Teaching Assistants, Postsecondary
Assist faculty or other instructional staff in postsecondary institutions by performing instructional support activities, such as developing teaching materials, leading discussion groups, preparing and giving examinations, and grading examinations or papers.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Teach undergraduate-level courses.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 02Evaluate and grade examinations, assignments, or papers, and record grades.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 03Lead discussion sections, tutorials, or laboratory sections.Mostly human for now
- 04Develop teaching materials, such as syllabi, visual aids, answer keys, supplementary notes, or course Web sites.People already use AI for this at work
- 05Inform students of the procedures for completing and submitting class work, such as lab reports.AI could speed this up a lot
- 06Return assignments to students in accordance with established deadlines.AI could speed this up a lot
- 07Prepare or proctor examinations.People already use AI for this at work
- 08Tutor or mentor students who need additional instruction.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 09Meet with supervisors to discuss students' grades or to complete required grade-related paperwork.AI could speed this up a lot
- 10Schedule and maintain regular office hours to meet with students.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 loss10%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
53%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 72% 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 44% 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.
- Lead discussion sections, tutorials, or laboratory sections.
- Schedule and maintain regular office hours to meet with students.