AI exposure: Landscaping and Groundskeeping Workers
Landscape or maintain grounds of property using hand or power tools or equipment. Workers typically perform a variety of tasks, which may include any combination of the following: sod laying, mowing, trimming, planting, watering, fertilizing, digging, raking, sprinkler installation, and installation of mortarless segmental concrete masonry wall units.
Reading this score
computedLandscaping and Groundskeeping Workers is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 7.6% of weighted task load, rank 836 of 923. 88.3% of this job is work current AI systems cannot produce at all. That is not a statement about skill or value. It is a statement about what these systems can and cannot do.
What holds the line here is embodiment. Across this occupation's 19 tasks it averages 2.84 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work has to happen in physical space. A language model cannot move matter. Until the robotics to do this work is both good enough and cheap enough to deploy widely, capability in software does not reach it.
The most exposed thing this job does is Follow planned landscaping designs to determine where to lay sod, sow grass, or plant flowers..., at 50.0%. The least is Attach wires from planted trees to support stakes, at 0.0%. A gap of 50.0% 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 building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 19.9% across the group's 8 roles, with 6 scoring higher. Being in an exposed family does not make a particular job exposed, and the reverse holds too.
What would move this score. Of 19 tasks, 1 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 18 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take robotics cheap and reliable enough to deploy at scale, not a better language model. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.
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 | 0.49 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.84 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 0.28 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 0.30 | 0-3 |
| Context | 0.76 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 0.47 | 0-3 |
Task by task
19 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Follow planned landscaping designs to determine where to lay sod, sow grass, or plant flowers or foliage. | 50.0% | 25.0% | 25.0% | 3.83 | exposed |
| Use hand tools, such as shovels, rakes, pruning saws, saws, hedge or brush trimmers, or axes. | 18.3% | 6.7% | 75.0% | 4.37 | untouched |
| Water lawns, trees, or plants, using portable sprinkler systems, hoses, or watering cans. | 16.7% | 8.3% | 75.0% | 3.79 | untouched |
| Provide proper upkeep of sidewalks, driveways, parking lots, fountains, planters, burial sites, or other grounds features. | 15.0% | 10.0% | 75.0% | 3.62 | untouched |
| Operate vehicles or powered equipment, such as mowers, tractors, twin-axle vehicles, snow blowers, chainsaws, electric clippers, sod cutters, or pruning saws. | 13.3% | 11.7% | 75.0% | 4.49 | untouched |
| Maintain or repair tools, equipment, or structures, such as buildings, greenhouses, fences, or benches, using hand or power tools. | 11.7% | 13.3% | 75.0% | 3.74 | untouched |
| Mow or edge lawns, using power mowers or edgers. | 8.3% | 4.2% | 87.5% | 4.60 | untouched |
| Prune or trim trees, shrubs, or hedges, using shears, pruners, or chain saws. | 8.3% | 4.2% | 87.5% | 4.34 | untouched |
| Mix and spray or spread fertilizers, herbicides, or insecticides onto grass, shrubs, or trees, using hand or automatic sprayers or spreaders. | 5.0% | 3.3% | 91.7% | 2.97 | untouched |
| Gather and remove litter. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.34 | untouched |
| Trim or pick flowers and clean flower beds. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.17 | untouched |
| Care for established lawns by mulching, aerating, weeding, grubbing, removing thatch, or trimming or edging around flower beds, walks, or walls. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.32 | untouched |
| Rake, mulch, and compost leaves. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.72 | untouched |
| Plant seeds, bulbs, foliage, flowering plants, grass, ground covers, trees, or shrubs, and apply mulch for protection, using gardening tools. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.51 | untouched |
| Plan or cultivate lawns or gardens. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.46 | untouched |
| Haul or spread topsoil, or spread straw over seeded soil to hold soil in place. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.42 | untouched |
| Shovel snow from walks, driveways, or parking lots, and spread salt in those areas. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.40 | untouched |
| Care for natural turf fields, making sure the underlying soil has the required composition to allow proper drainage and to support the grasses. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.38 | untouched |
| Attach wires from planted trees to support stakes. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 2.83 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean. 3 task(s) lacked a usable O*NET weight and are shown but excluded from the weighting.
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.
What this means in practice
Most of this work is not reachable by current systems, so the immediate pressure is on the administrative edges of the role rather than its core: the scheduling, the reporting, the written records. That is where time is recovered.