AI exposure: Cashiers
Receive and disburse money in establishments other than financial institutions. May use electronic scanners, cash registers, or related equipment. May process credit or debit card transactions and validate checks.
Reading this score
computed50.0% of this occupation's weighted task load is exposed, which puts Cashiers at the 88th percentile of 923 occupations. The capability is largely there. Its average task scores 2.8 out of 4 on what a current system can produce, and the frictions that hold other jobs in place are comparatively weak here.
No single friction dominates this occupation. The strongest is context at 1.39 out of 3 and the weakest is accountability at 0.82, which is a narrow spread. Where nothing structural stands in the way, exposure tracks capability almost directly, and capability is the thing that changes every quarter.
The most exposed thing this job does is Answer incoming phone calls, at 86.7%. The least is Stock shelves, sort and reshelve returned items, and mark prices on items and shelves, at 0.0%. A gap of 86.7% 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 sales occupations, this one is more exposed than most. The median across the 22 roles in the group is 49.4%, and only 10 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 28 tasks, 20 are currently banded exposed, 2 assisted and 6 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take capability alone, since there is little structural friction here to slow adoption once a system can do the work. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
Task by task
28 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Answer incoming phone calls. | 86.7% | 13.3% | 0.0% | 4.39 | exposed |
| Help customers find the location of products. | 86.7% | 13.3% | 0.0% | 4.26 | exposed |
| Offer customers carry-out service at the completion of transactions. | 86.7% | 13.3% | 0.0% | 3.94 | exposed |
| Post charges against guests' or patients' accounts. | 80.0% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 4.41 | exposed |
| Weigh items sold by weight to determine prices. | 80.0% | 20.0% | 0.0% | 4.40 | exposed |
| Assist customers by providing information and resolving their complaints. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.50 | exposed |
| Monitor checkout stations to ensure they have adequate cash available and are staffed appropriately. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.47 | exposed |
| Establish or identify prices of goods, services, or admission, and tabulate bills, using calculators, cash registers, or optical price scanners. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.42 | exposed |
| Answer customers' questions, and provide information on procedures or policies. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.39 | exposed |
| Compute and record totals of transactions. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.40 | exposed |
| Keep periodic balance sheets of amounts and numbers of transactions. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.36 | exposed |
| Compile and maintain non-monetary reports and records. | 73.3% | 26.7% | 0.0% | 4.26 | exposed |
| Calculate total payments received during a time period, and reconcile this with total sales. | 70.0% | 30.0% | 0.0% | 4.67 | exposed |
| Count money in cash drawers at the beginning of shifts to ensure that amounts are correct and that there is adequate change. | 66.7% | 33.3% | 0.0% | 4.60 | exposed |
| Receive payment by cash, check, credit cards, vouchers, or automatic debits. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 4.75 | exposed |
| Process merchandise returns and exchanges. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 4.04 | exposed |
| Issue trading stamps, and redeem food stamps and coupons. | 33.3% | 29.2% | 37.5% | 4.53 | exposed |
| Sell tickets and other items to customers. | 30.0% | 20.0% | 50.0% | 4.18 | exposed |
| Assist with duties in other areas of the store, such as monitoring fitting rooms or bagging and carrying out customers' items. | 28.3% | 21.7% | 50.0% | 4.19 | exposed |
| Request information or assistance, using paging systems. | 26.7% | 23.3% | 50.0% | 4.29 | exposed |
| Supervise others and provide on-the-job training. | 21.2% | 16.2% | 62.5% | 4.24 | untouched |
| Issue receipts, refunds, credits, or change due to customers. | 20.0% | 30.0% | 50.0% | 4.66 | assisted |
| Cash checks for customers. | 20.0% | 30.0% | 50.0% | 4.10 | assisted |
| Greet customers entering establishments. | 13.3% | 11.7% | 75.0% | 4.70 | untouched |
| Sort, count, and wrap currency and coins. | 11.7% | 13.3% | 75.0% | 4.39 | untouched |
| Bag, box, wrap, or gift-wrap merchandise, and prepare packages for shipment. | 8.3% | 4.2% | 87.5% | 4.14 | untouched |
| Maintain clean and orderly checkout areas, and complete other general cleaning duties, such as mopping floors and emptying trash cans. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.00 | untouched |
| Stock shelves, sort and reshelve returned items, and mark prices on items and shelves. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.15 | untouched |
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
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 | 2.80 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 0.98 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.86 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.82 | 0-3 |
| Context | 1.39 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 0.86 | 0-3 |
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.