AI exposure: Painting, Coating, and Decorating Workers
Paint, coat, or decorate articles, such as furniture, glass, plateware, pottery, jewelry, toys, books, or leather.
Reading this score
computedAt 9.4% of weighted task load, Painting, Coating, and Decorating Workers sits at the 13th percentile, below the point where a job's centre of gravity has moved. 84.9% 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 9 tasks it averages 2.67 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 Read job orders and inspect workpieces to determine work procedures and materials required, at 30.0%. The least is Rinse, drain, or wipe coated workpieces to remove excess coating material or to facilitate..., at 0.0%. A gap of 30.0% 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 production occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 16.2% across the group's 107 roles, with 84 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 9 tasks, 1 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 8 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 | 0.56 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.67 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.06 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.28 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.17 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 1.11 | 0-3 |
Task by task
9 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Read job orders and inspect workpieces to determine work procedures and materials required. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 4.09 | exposed |
| Select and mix ingredients to prepare coating substances according to specifications, using paddles or mechanical mixers. | 23.8% | 13.8% | 62.5% | 4.36 | untouched |
| Examine finished surfaces of workpieces to verify conformance to specifications and retouch any defective areas. | 16.7% | 8.3% | 75.0% | 4.46 | untouched |
| Clean and maintain tools and equipment, using solvents, brushes, and rags. | 6.7% | 5.8% | 87.5% | 4.10 | untouched |
| Apply coatings, such as paint, ink, or lacquer, to protect or decorate workpiece surfaces, using spray guns, pens, or brushes. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.68 | untouched |
| Place coated workpieces in ovens or dryers for specified times to dry or harden finishes. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.29 | untouched |
| Clean surfaces of workpieces in preparation for coating, using cleaning fluids, solvents, brushes, scrapers, steam, sandpaper, or cloth. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.06 | untouched |
| Conceal blemishes in workpieces, such as nicks and dents, using fillers such as putty. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.01 | untouched |
| Rinse, drain, or wipe coated workpieces to remove excess coating material or to facilitate setting of finish coats on workpieces. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.89 | 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.