The Task Exposure Indexv2026.Q3
Occupation · SOC 37-2012.00 · Job Zone 2

AI exposure: Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners

Perform any combination of light cleaning duties to maintain private households or commercial establishments, such as hotels and hospitals, in a clean and orderly manner. Duties may include making beds, replenishing linens, cleaning rooms and halls, and vacuuming.

Reading this score

computed

Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 5.4% of weighted task load, rank 869 of 923. 91.2% of this job is work current AI systems cannot produce at all. That is not a statement about skill or value. It is a statement about what these systems can and cannot do.

What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 20 tasks it averages 2.85 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 Request repair services and wait for repair workers to arrive, at 80.0%. The least is Polish silver accessories and metalwork, 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 building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 19.9% across the group's 8 roles, with 7 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 20 tasks, 1 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 19 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

judged

Every 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.

DimensionMeanScale
Capability0.470-4
Embodiment2.850-3
Presence0.380-3
Accountability0.230-3
Context0.450-3
Verification cost0.330-3

Task by task

20 tasks, O*NET 31.0
TaskExposedAssistedUntouchedImportanceBand
Request repair services and wait for repair workers to arrive.80.0%20.0%0.0%3.58exposed
Replenish supplies, such as drinking glasses, linens, writing supplies, and bathroom items.13.3%11.7%75.0%4.17untouched
Sort, count, and mark clean linens and store them in linen closets.13.3%11.7%75.0%4.13untouched
Replace light bulbs.11.7%13.3%75.0%3.67untouched
Hang draperies and dust window blinds.9.2%3.3%87.5%3.60untouched
Prepare rooms for meetings and arrange decorations, media equipment, and furniture for social or business functions.9.2%3.3%87.5%3.57untouched
Keep storage areas and carts well-stocked, clean, and tidy.8.3%4.2%87.5%4.42untouched
Observe precautions required to protect hotel and guest property and report damage, theft, and found articles to supervisors.8.3%16.7%75.0%4.18untouched
Carry linens, towels, toilet items, and cleaning supplies, using wheeled carts.0.0%0.0%100.0%4.38untouched
Clean rooms, hallways, lobbies, lounges, restrooms, corridors, elevators, stairways, locker rooms, and other work areas so that health standards are met.0.0%0.0%100.0%4.34untouched
Empty wastebaskets, empty and clean ashtrays, and transport other trash and waste to disposal areas.0.0%0.0%100.0%4.20untouched
Sweep, scrub, wax, or polish floors, using brooms, mops, or powered scrubbing and waxing machines.0.0%0.0%100.0%4.19untouched
Clean rugs, carpets, upholstered furniture, and draperies, using vacuum cleaners and shampooers.0.0%0.0%100.0%4.08untouched
Wash windows, walls, ceilings, and woodwork, waxing and polishing as necessary.0.0%0.0%100.0%4.04untouched
Dust and polish furniture and equipment.0.0%0.0%100.0%4.01untouched
Disinfect equipment and supplies, using germicides or steam-operated sterilizers.0.0%0.0%100.0%4.29untouched
Sort clothing and other articles, load washing machines, and iron and fold dried items.0.0%0.0%100.0%4.08untouched
Move and arrange furniture and turn mattresses.0.0%0.0%100.0%3.85untouched
Deliver television sets, ironing boards, baby cribs, and rollaway beds to guests' rooms.0.0%0.0%100.0%3.66untouched
Polish silver accessories and metalwork, such as fixtures and fittings.0.0%0.0%100.0%3.44untouched

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.