The Task Exposure Indexv2026.Q3
Occupation · SOC 13-1082.00 · Job Zone 4

AI exposure: Project Management Specialists

Analyze and coordinate the schedule, timeline, procurement, staffing, and budget of a product or service on a per project basis. Lead and guide the work of technical staff. May serve as a point of contact for the client or customer.

Reading this score

computed

47.9% of this occupation's weighted task load is exposed, which puts Project Management Specialists at the 86th percentile of 923 occupations. The capability is largely there. Its average task scores 3.0 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 20 tasks it averages 2.12 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 Request and review project updates to ensure deadlines are met, at 73.3%. The least is Monitor the performance of project team members to provide performance feedback, at 13.3%. A gap of 60.0% 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 business and financial operations occupations, this one is more exposed than most. The median across the 48 roles in the group is 47.1%, and only 22 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 20 tasks, 16 are currently banded exposed, 3 assisted and 1 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

20 tasks, O*NET 31.0
TaskExposedAssistedUntouchedImportanceBand
Request and review project updates to ensure deadlines are met.73.3%26.7%0.0%4.29exposed
Create project status presentations for delivery to customers or project personnel.73.3%26.7%0.0%3.89exposed
Produce and distribute project documents.73.3%26.7%0.0%3.89exposed
Develop or update project plans including information such as objectives, technologies, schedules, funding, and staffing.73.3%26.7%0.0%3.78exposed
Propose, review, or approve modifications to project plans.73.3%26.7%0.0%3.62exposed
Assign duties or responsibilities to project personnel.66.7%33.3%0.0%4.07exposed
Report project status, such as budget, resources, technical issues, or customer satisfaction, to managers.66.7%33.3%0.0%3.75exposed
Prepare and submit budget estimates, progress reports, or cost tracking reports.60.0%40.0%0.0%3.56exposed
Identify project needs such as resources, staff, or finances by reviewing project objectives and schedules.55.0%20.0%25.0%4.50exposed
Confer with project personnel to identify and resolve problems.50.0%25.0%25.0%4.33exposed
Communicate with key stakeholders to determine project requirements and objectives.45.0%30.0%25.0%4.54exposed
Negotiate with project stakeholders or suppliers to obtain resources or materials.45.0%30.0%25.0%3.88exposed
Monitor costs incurred by project staff to identify budget issues.45.0%30.0%25.0%3.83exposed
Submit project deliverables to clients, ensuring adherence to quality standards.26.7%23.3%50.0%4.36exposed
Monitor project milestones and deliverables.26.7%23.3%50.0%4.11exposed
Schedule or facilitate project meetings.26.7%23.3%50.0%3.62exposed
Plan, schedule, or coordinate project activities to meet deadlines.23.3%26.7%50.0%4.30assisted
Recruit or hire project personnel.16.7%33.3%50.0%3.82assisted
Identify, review, or select vendors or consultants to meet project needs.16.7%33.3%50.0%3.62assisted
Monitor the performance of project team members to provide performance feedback.13.3%11.7%75.0%3.81untouched

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

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
Capability3.000-4
Embodiment0.150-3
Presence1.000-3
Accountability1.230-3
Context2.120-3
Verification cost1.450-3

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.