Job Check
Veterinary Technologists and Technicians
Perform medical tests in a laboratory environment for use in the treatment and diagnosis of diseases in animals. Prepare vaccines and serums for prevention of diseases. Prepare tissue samples, take blood samples, and execute laboratory tests, such as urinalysis and blood counts. Clean and sterilize instruments and materials and maintain equipment and machines. May assist a veterinarian during surgery.
10 main tasks · most important first
Your main tasks and AI
Importance- 01Administer anesthesia to animals, under the direction of a veterinarian, and monitor animals' responses to anesthetics so that dosages can be adjusted.Mostly human for now
- 02Care for and monitor the condition of animals recovering from surgery.Mostly human for now
- 03Maintain controlled drug inventory and related log books.AI could speed this up a lot
- 04Perform laboratory tests on blood, urine, or feces, such as urinalyses or blood counts, to assist in the diagnosis and treatment of animal health problems.AI could speed this up, with extra tools
- 05Prepare and administer medications, vaccines, serums, or treatments, as prescribed by veterinarians.Mostly human for now
- 06Restrain animals during exams or procedures.Mostly human for now
- 07Administer emergency first aid, such as performing emergency resuscitation or other life saving procedures.Mostly human for now
- 08Clean and sterilize instruments, equipment, or materials.Mostly human for now
- 09Provide veterinarians with the correct equipment or instruments, as needed.Mostly human for now
- 10Perform dental work, such as cleaning, polishing, or extracting teeth.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
16%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 18% 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 58% 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.
- Administer anesthesia to animals, under the direction of a veterinarian, and monitor animals' responses to anesthetics so that dosages can be adjusted.
- Care for and monitor the condition of animals recovering from surgery.
- Prepare and administer medications, vaccines, serums, or treatments, as prescribed by veterinarians.