AI exposure in food preparation and serving occupations
16 occupations, 320 tasks, scored against the capability frontier of 2026-09-15. This family ranks 16 of 22 by median exposed share.
Reading this family
computedThe median food preparation and serving occupation has 17.1% of its weighted task load in work current AI systems can already produce, which is 7.1 points below the median across every occupation in the index. Weighted by how many people actually do these jobs, the figure is 18.3%, across 13,576,780 US workers. 3 of these occupations fall in the exposed band, 0 in assisted and 13 in untouched.
What holds the line across this family is embodiment, at 2.26 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. Hosts and Hostesses, Restaurant, Lounge, and Coffee Shop sits at 36.5%. Dishwashers sits at 0.0%. Both are food preparation and serving occupations, and 36.5 points separate them.
Where the family score comes from
judgedMeans across all 320 tasks in this family. Capability is what AI can do; the other five are what stands in the way.
| Dimension | Mean | Scale |
|---|---|---|
| Capability | 1.15 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.26 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.82 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.57 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.05 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 0.75 | 0-3 |
Every food preparation and serving occupation
See them on the chart| Occupation | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Median pay | Tasks | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hosts and Hostesses, Restaurant, Lounge, and Coffee Shop | 36.5% | 15.2% | 48.2% | $31,200 | 20 | exposed |
| First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers | 36.3% | 18.1% | 45.6% | $44,080 | 26 | exposed |
| Chefs and Head Cooks | 34.6% | 17.8% | 47.6% | $62,470 | 21 | exposed |
| Cooks, Private Household | 25.4% | 9.5% | 65.1% | $47,940 | 13 | untouched |
| Waiters and Waitresses | 23.2% | 9.1% | 67.7% | $35,230 | 25 | untouched |
| Bartenders | 22.3% | 11.2% | 66.5% | $34,340 | 20 | untouched |
| Fast Food and Counter Workers | 18.9% | 7.2% | 73.9% | $31,200 | 27 | untouched |
| Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria | 18.2% | 10.2% | 71.6% | $37,450 | 17 | untouched |
| Baristas | 16.1% | 7.5% | 76.3% | $31,200 | 19 | untouched |
| Food Servers, Nonrestaurant | 15.0% | 7.9% | 77.1% | $35,360 | 14 | untouched |
| Cooks, Restaurant | 12.0% | 6.6% | 81.4% | $37,390 | 20 | untouched |
| Cooks, Short Order | 7.6% | 4.4% | 88.1% | $35,880 | 11 | untouched |
| Food Preparation Workers | 6.7% | 3.8% | 89.5% | $35,320 | 31 | untouched |
| Cooks, Fast Food | 6.6% | 2.8% | 90.6% | $30,890 | 20 | untouched |
| Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers | 6.6% | 2.1% | 91.4% | $33,980 | 23 | untouched |
| Dishwashers | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | $34,810 | 13 | 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.