AI exposure in building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations
8 occupations, 164 tasks, scored against the capability frontier of 2026-09-15. This family ranks 18 of 22 by median exposed share.
Reading this family
computedThe median building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupation has 15.4% of its weighted task load in work current AI systems can already produce, which is 8.9 points below the median across every occupation in the index. Weighted by how many people actually do these jobs, the figure is 10.6%, across 4,517,420 US workers. 2 of these occupations fall in the exposed band, 0 in assisted and 6 in untouched.
What holds the line across this family is embodiment, at 2.20 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions here. In plain terms the obstacle is a body in a place. The work happens to physical objects in physical rooms. No amount of model capability reaches it, because the bottleneck is hands rather than reasoning.
The spread inside the family is wider than the gap between families, which is the usual pattern and the reason this index does not publish a single number per group. First-Line Supervisors of Housekeeping and Janitorial Workers sits at 35.4%. Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners sits at 5.4%. Both are building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations, and 30.0 points separate them.
Where the family score comes from
judgedMeans across all 164 tasks in this family. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 1.18 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.20 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.65 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.60 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.07 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 0.84 | 0-3 |
Every building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupation
See them on the chart| Occupation | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Median pay | Tasks | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First-Line Supervisors of Housekeeping and Janitorial Workers | 35.4% | 18.3% | 46.3% | $49,100 | 26 | exposed |
| First-Line Supervisors of Landscaping, Lawn Service, and Groundskeeping Workers | 34.1% | 17.9% | 48.0% | $58,430 | 28 | exposed |
| Pest Control Workers | 29.1% | 12.5% | 58.4% | $45,250 | 14 | untouched |
| Pesticide Handlers, Sprayers, and Applicators, Vegetation | 19.9% | 8.8% | 71.3% | $46,340 | 12 | untouched |
| Tree Trimmers and Pruners | 10.8% | 6.1% | 83.1% | $50,960 | 24 | untouched |
| Janitors and Cleaners, Except Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners | 9.5% | 4.7% | 85.8% | $36,840 | 21 | untouched |
| Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers | 7.6% | 4.1% | 88.3% | $39,150 | 19 | untouched |
| Maids and Housekeeping Cleaners | 5.4% | 3.3% | 91.2% | $35,510 | 20 | untouched |
Exposure is not displacement. These figures say what current systems can produce and what stands in the way. They do not say anyone will stop paying a person to do the work. How the score is built.