AI exposure: Commercial and Industrial Designers
Design and develop manufactured products, such as cars, home appliances, and children's toys. Combine artistic talent with research on product use, marketing, and materials to create the most functional and appealing product design.
Reading this score
computed42.3% of this occupation's weighted task load is exposed, which puts Commercial and Industrial Designers at the 75th percentile of 923 occupations. The capability is largely there. Its average task scores 2.6 out of 4 on what a current system can produce, and the frictions that hold other jobs in place are comparatively weak here.
What holds the line here is context. Across this occupation's 17 tasks it averages 1.94 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work depends on knowledge the model cannot hold. Much of this job runs on things that were never written down: what this particular organisation does, what happened last week, what the person across the table actually meant. That context is the barrier, and it erodes as systems are given more access.
The most exposed thing this job does is Read publications, attend showings, and study competing products and design styles and motifs..., at 86.7%. The least is Direct and coordinate the fabrication of models or samples and the drafting of working drawings..., at 6.7%. A gap of 80.0% between two parts of the same job is the reason this index publishes at task level. An occupation-wide number would have hidden both.
Within arts, design, entertainment, sports and media occupations, this one is more exposed than most. The median across the 40 roles in the group is 36.4%, and only 16 of them score higher than this. Occupational families are not uniform, and the spread inside them is often wider than the gap between them.
What would move this score. Of 17 tasks, 15 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 2 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take systems being given deeper access to the organisation's own records and history, which is already happening. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Task by task
17 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read publications, attend showings, and study competing products and design styles and motifs to obtain perspective and generate design concepts. | 86.7% | 13.3% | 0.0% | 3.09 | exposed |
| Advise corporations on issues involving corporate image projects or problems. | 60.0% | 15.0% | 25.0% | 1.91 | exposed |
| Investigate product characteristics such as the product's safety and handling qualities, its market appeal, how efficiently it can be produced, and ways of distributing, using, and maintaining it. | 55.0% | 20.0% | 25.0% | 3.44 | exposed |
| Participate in new product planning or market research, including studying the potential need for new products. | 55.0% | 20.0% | 25.0% | 3.28 | exposed |
| Modify and refine designs, using working models, to conform with customer specifications, production limitations, or changes in design trends. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 4.34 | exposed |
| Research production specifications, costs, production materials, and manufacturing methods and provide cost estimates and itemized production requirements. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 3.68 | exposed |
| Coordinate the look and function of product lines. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 3.61 | exposed |
| Develop manufacturing procedures and monitor the manufacture of their designs in a factory to improve operations and product quality. | 47.5% | 27.5% | 25.0% | 3.44 | exposed |
| Confer with engineering, marketing, production, or sales departments, or with customers, to establish and evaluate design concepts for manufactured products. | 45.0% | 30.0% | 25.0% | 3.97 | exposed |
| Develop industrial standards and regulatory guidelines. | 42.5% | 32.5% | 25.0% | 3.75 | exposed |
| Evaluate feasibility of design ideas, based on factors such as appearance, safety, function, serviceability, budget, production costs/methods, and market characteristics. | 36.3% | 22.0% | 41.7% | 4.08 | exposed |
| Present designs and reports to customers or design committees for approval and discuss need for modification. | 35.4% | 27.1% | 37.5% | 3.96 | exposed |
| Prepare sketches of ideas, detailed drawings, illustrations, artwork, or blueprints, using drafting instruments, paints and brushes, or computer-aided design equipment. | 33.3% | 16.7% | 50.0% | 4.38 | exposed |
| Design graphic material for use as ornamentation, illustration, or advertising on manufactured materials and packaging or containers. | 33.3% | 16.7% | 50.0% | 3.21 | exposed |
| Supervise assistants' work throughout the design process. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 3.25 | exposed |
| Fabricate models or samples in paper, wood, glass, fabric, plastic, metal, or other materials, using hand or power tools. | 16.7% | 8.3% | 75.0% | 3.05 | untouched |
| Direct and coordinate the fabrication of models or samples and the drafting of working drawings and specification sheets from sketches. | 6.7% | 18.3% | 75.0% | 3.55 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
Where the score comes from
judgedEvery task is scored through the standardised work activities it maps to. These are this occupation’s averages on the six rubric dimensions. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 2.58 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 0.67 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.61 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.74 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.94 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.35 | 0-3 |
What this means in practice
Where most of a role's weighted task load is exposed, the work that survives is usually the part of the job nobody wrote into the job description: deciding what should be produced rather than producing it, and being answerable for the result. The tasks lowest on this page are a better guide to where to spend your time than any general advice about the future of work.
Occupations either side of this one
The four closest scores in the same occupational family, then the four closest anywhere in the index.
Read this carefully. Exposure is not displacement. A high score means current AI systems can produce this work, not that anyone will stop paying a person to do it. Adoption depends on economics, regulation and inertia that this index deliberately does not model. How the score is built.