The Task Exposure Indexv2026.Q3
Occupation · SOC 13-1161.00 · Job Zone 4

AI exposure: Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists

Research conditions in local, regional, national, or online markets. Gather information to determine potential sales of a product or service, or plan a marketing or advertising campaign. May gather information on competitors, prices, sales, and methods of marketing and distribution. May employ search marketing tactics, analyze web metrics, and develop recommendations to increase search engine ranking and visibility to target markets.

Reading this score

computed

Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists sits in the top 1% of every occupation measured. 66.8% of what this job consists of, weighted by how important each task is to the role, is work current AI systems can produce with little standing in the way. Very few occupations score this high. The ones that do tend to share a trait: the output is a document, a calculation or a message, and nobody has to be in a particular room for it to count.

What holds the line here is context. Across this occupation's 13 tasks it averages 1.69 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, the work depends on knowledge the model cannot hold. Much of this job runs on things that were never written down: what this particular organisation does, what happened last week, what the person across the table actually meant. That context is the barrier, and it erodes as systems are given more access.

The most exposed thing this job does is Conduct research on consumer opinions and marketing strategies, collaborating with marketing..., at 86.7%. The least is Direct trained survey interviewers, at 13.3%. A gap of 73.3% 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 business and financial operations occupations, this one is more exposed than most. The median across the 48 roles in the group is 47.1%, and only 0 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 13 tasks, 12 are currently banded exposed, 0 assisted and 1 untouched. For that distribution to shift materially would take systems being given deeper access to the organisation's own records and history, which is already happening. The score is re-computed every quarter against a fresh capability reference, and the change is published rather than quietly applied.

Task by task

13 tasks, O*NET 31.0
TaskExposedAssistedUntouchedImportanceBand
Conduct research on consumer opinions and marketing strategies, collaborating with marketing professionals, statisticians, pollsters, and other professionals.86.7%13.3%0.0%3.94exposed
Collect and analyze data on customer demographics, preferences, needs, and buying habits to identify potential markets and factors affecting product demand.86.7%13.3%0.0%3.88exposed
Forecast and track marketing and sales trends, analyzing collected data.86.7%13.3%0.0%3.12exposed
Gather data on competitors and analyze their prices, sales, and method of marketing and distribution.80.0%20.0%0.0%3.65exposed
Monitor industry statistics and follow trends in trade literature.80.0%20.0%0.0%3.53exposed
Prepare reports of findings, illustrating data graphically and translating complex findings into written text.73.3%26.7%0.0%4.06exposed
Seek and provide information to help companies determine their position in the marketplace.73.3%26.7%0.0%4.06exposed
Measure the effectiveness of marketing, advertising, and communications programs and strategies.66.7%33.3%0.0%3.36exposed
Measure and assess customer and employee satisfaction.50.0%25.0%25.0%3.62exposed
Develop and implement procedures for identifying advertising needs.50.0%25.0%25.0%2.86exposed
Devise and evaluate methods and procedures for collecting data, such as surveys, opinion polls, or questionnaires, or arrange to obtain existing data.45.0%30.0%25.0%3.85exposed
Attend staff conferences to provide management with information and proposals concerning the promotion, distribution, design, and pricing of company products or services.45.0%30.0%25.0%3.45exposed
Direct trained survey interviewers.13.3%11.7%75.0%3.36untouched

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

judged

Every 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.

DimensionMeanScale
Capability3.460-4
Embodiment0.000-3
Presence0.540-3
Accountability0.690-3
Context1.690-3
Verification cost1.230-3

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.