AI exposure: Food Servers, Nonrestaurant
Serve food to individuals outside of a restaurant environment, such as in hotel rooms, hospital rooms, residential care facilities, or cars.
Reading this score
computedAt 15.0% of weighted task load, Food Servers, Nonrestaurant sits at the 23th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 77.1% of what this role does is untouched, meaning current systems cannot produce that work at all, whatever the commercial incentive.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 14 tasks it averages 2.57 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Total checks, present them to customers, and accept payment for services, at 80.0%. The least is Prepare food items, at 0.0%. 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 food preparation and serving occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 18.2% across the group's 16 roles, with 9 scoring higher. Being in an exposed family does not make a particular job exposed, and the reverse holds too.
What would move this score. Of 14 tasks, 3 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 11 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
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 | 1.07 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.57 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.71 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.46 | 0-3 |
| Context | 0.79 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 0.61 | 0-3 |
Task by task
14 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total checks, present them to customers, and accept payment for services. | 80.0% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 4.51 | exposed |
| Record amounts and types of special food items served to customers. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.33 | exposed |
| Take food orders and relay orders to kitchens or serving counters so they can be filled. | 55.0% | 20.0% | 25.0% | 4.54 | exposed |
| Determine where patients or patrons would like to eat their meals and help them get situated. | 13.3% | 11.7% | 75.0% | 4.15 | untouched |
| Examine trays to ensure that they contain required items. | 11.7% | 13.3% | 75.0% | 4.68 | untouched |
| Monitor food distribution, ensuring that meals are delivered to the correct recipients and that guidelines, such as those for special diets, are followed. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 4.77 | untouched |
| Monitor food preparation or serving techniques to ensure that proper procedures are followed. | 10.0% | 15.0% | 75.0% | 4.49 | untouched |
| Place food servings on plates or trays according to orders or instructions. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.82 | untouched |
| Clean or sterilize dishes, kitchen utensils, equipment, or facilities. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.78 | untouched |
| Load trays with accessories, such as eating utensils, napkins, or condiments. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.62 | untouched |
| Remove trays and stack dishes for return to kitchen after meals are finished. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.47 | untouched |
| Carry food, silverware, or linen on trays or use carts to carry trays. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.40 | untouched |
| Stock service stations with items, such as ice, napkins, or straws. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.28 | untouched |
| Prepare food items, such as sandwiches, salads, soups, or beverages. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.25 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
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.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.