How exposed to AI is community and social service work?

Across the 14 occupations in this family, the median exposed share of weighted task load is 24.9%, which is above the site-wide median of 24.3%. It ranks 10 of 22 occupational families. The most exposed role is Health Education Specialists at 38.5% and the least is Substance Abuse and Behavioral Disorder Counselors at 19.1%.

Occupational family

AI exposure in community and social service occupations

Q: What stops AI doing community and social service work?

The dominant friction in this family is context, averaging 2.22 out of 3 across its 295 tasks. The work runs on private, tacit or real-time organisational knowledge. This is the friction most likely to erode, because context is a plumbing problem rather than a law.

14 occupations, 295 tasks, scored against the capability frontier of 2026-09-15. This family ranks 10 of 22 by median exposed share.

24.9%

median exposed share computed

occupations in the family

2.0M

US jobs in this family sourced

$60,810

median of the family’s median wages

Reading this family

computed

The median community and social service occupation has 24.9% of its weighted task load in work current AI systems can already produce, which is 0.6 points above the median across every occupation in the index. Weighted by how many people actually do these jobs, the figure is 26.7%, across 1,961,740 US workers. 2 of these occupations fall in the exposed band, 8 in assisted and 4 in untouched.

What holds the line across this family is context, at 2.22 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions here. In plain terms the obstacle is knowing things a model cannot hold. The work runs on private, tacit or real-time organisational knowledge. This is the friction most likely to erode, because context is a plumbing problem rather than a law.

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. Health Education Specialists sits at 38.5%. Substance Abuse and Behavioral Disorder Counselors sits at 19.1%. Both are community and social service occupations, and 19.4 points separate them.

Where the family score comes from

judged

Means across all 295 tasks in this family. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.

Dimension	Mean	Scale
Capability	2.08	0-4
Embodiment	0.74	0-3
Presence	1.90	0-3
Accountability	1.50	0-3
Context	2.22	0-3
Verification cost	1.87	0-3

Every community and social service occupation

See them on the chart

Occupation	Exposed	Assisted	Untouched	Median pay	Tasks	Band
Health Education Specialists	38.5%	27.0%	34.5%	$64,070	16	exposed
Directors, Religious Activities and Education	33.9%	23.9%	42.2%	$52,100	19	exposed
Probation Officers and Correctional Treatment Specialists	30.6%	26.3%	43.1%	$66,270	21	assisted
Community Health Workers	30.4%	27.0%	42.6%	$51,850	29	assisted
Educational, Guidance, and Career Counselors and Advisors	29.3%	25.5%	45.2%	$64,330	35	assisted
Social and Human Service Assistants	26.6%	23.4%	50.0%	$45,930	19	assisted
Child, Family, and School Social Workers	25.4%	28.5%	46.1%	$59,550	21	assisted
Rehabilitation Counselors	24.4%	28.7%	46.9%	$46,850	17	assisted
Clergy	24.1%	18.5%	57.4%	$60,810	21	untouched
Marriage and Family Therapists	23.9%	27.7%	48.4%	$66,940	17	assisted
Healthcare Social Workers	23.1%	28.2%	48.8%	$67,880	17	assisted
Mental Health Counselors	23.0%	25.1%	51.9%	n/a	27	untouched
Mental Health and Substance Abuse Social Workers	21.0%	24.9%	54.0%	$60,280	13	untouched
Substance Abuse and Behavioral Disorder Counselors	19.1%	24.2%	56.7%	n/a	23	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.