Food Servers, Nonrestaurant vs Cooks, Restaurant
Food Servers, Nonrestaurant carries the higher exposed share at 15.0% against 12.0%, a gap of 3.0 points. The difference is driven by friction: the work is similarly producible in both, and what differs is what stands in the way of letting a machine finish it. Release v2026.Q3.
| Occupation | Exposed | Assisted | Untouched | Capability | Friction | Median pay | Rank | Band |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Food Servers, Nonrestaurant | 15.0% | 7.9% | 77.1% | 0.23 | 0.34 | $35,360 | 708 | untouched |
| Cooks, Restaurant | 12.0% | 6.6% | 81.4% | 0.19 | 0.41 | $37,390 | 754 | untouched |
What stands in the way, in each
Food Servers, Nonrestaurant: the dominant friction is that the work happens to physical things in physical places. Capability sits at 0.23 of 1 and friction at 0.34 of 1.
Cooks, Restaurant: the dominant friction is that the work happens to physical things in physical places. Capability sits at 0.19 of 1 and friction at 0.41 of 1.
Capability asks whether a generally available system can produce the work product at all. Friction asks what stops it finishing the job: physical work, being present, being accountable, unseen context, or the cost of checking the output. The rubric is here.
Read each in full
Exposure is not displacement. A higher score does not rank two jobs by how safe they are, and nothing here models adoption, employment or pay.