AI exposure: Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons
Perform surgery and related procedures on the hard and soft tissues of the oral and maxillofacial regions to treat diseases, injuries, or defects. May diagnose problems of the oral and maxillofacial regions. May perform surgery to improve function or appearance.
Reading this score
computedOral and Maxillofacial Surgeons is among the least exposed occupations measured, at 4.1% of weighted task load, rank 887 of 923. 83.6% 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 accountability. Across this occupation's 15 tasks it averages 3.00 out of 3, the highest of the five friction dimensions. In plain terms, someone licensed has to sign the work. Capability and permission are different things. Where a statute or a professional body requires a named, liable human to approve the output, the work can be drafted by a machine and still require the person.
The most exposed thing this job does is Evaluate the position of the wisdom teeth to determine whether problems exist currently or..., at 30.0%. The least is Perform minor cosmetic procedures, at 0.0%. A gap of 30.0% 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 healthcare practitioner and technical occupations, this one is less exposed than the median of 18.5% across the group's 89 roles, with 88 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 15 tasks, 0 are currently banded exposed, 2 assisted and 13 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 | 0.60 | 0-4 |
| Embodiment | 2.56 | 0-3 |
| Presence | 2.78 | 0-3 |
| Accountability | 3.00 | 0-3 |
| Context | 2.40 | 0-3 |
| Verification cost | 3.00 | 0-3 |
Task by task
15 tasks, O*NET 31.0| Task | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Importance | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Evaluate the position of the wisdom teeth to determine whether problems exist currently or might occur in the future. | 30.0% | 45.0% | 25.0% | 4.81 | assisted |
| Collaborate with other professionals, such as restorative dentists and orthodontists, to plan treatment. | 13.3% | 36.7% | 50.0% | 4.62 | assisted |
| Evaluate and treat problems related to the temperomandibular joint (TMJ). | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 3.72 | untouched |
| Perform minor facial rejuvenation procedures, including the use of Botox and laser technology. | 3.3% | 21.7% | 75.0% | 2.38 | untouched |
| Treat infections of the oral cavity, salivary glands, jaws, and neck. | 1.7% | 23.3% | 75.0% | 4.65 | untouched |
| Treat problems affecting the oral mucosa, such as mouth ulcers and infections. | 1.7% | 23.3% | 75.0% | 4.15 | untouched |
| Administer general and local anesthetics. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.85 | untouched |
| Remove impacted, damaged, and non-restorable teeth. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.84 | untouched |
| Perform surgery to prepare the mouth for dental implants and to aid in the regeneration of deficient bone and gum tissues. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.50 | untouched |
| Remove tumors and other abnormal growths of the oral and facial regions, using surgical instruments. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.35 | untouched |
| Provide emergency treatment of facial injuries including facial lacerations, intra-oral lacerations, and fractured facial bones. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 4.28 | untouched |
| Restore form and function by moving skin, bone, nerves, and other tissues from other parts of the body to reconstruct the jaws and face. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.91 | untouched |
| Perform surgery on the mouth and jaws to treat conditions such as cleft lip, cleft palate, and jaw growth problems. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.88 | untouched |
| Treat snoring problems, using laser surgery. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 3.13 | untouched |
| Perform minor cosmetic procedures, such as chin and cheekbone enhancements. | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 2.71 | untouched |
Task text and importance ratings sourced from O*NET 31.0. Shares computed. The occupation score is the importance-weighted mean.
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.