The Task Exposure Indexv2026.Q3
Comparison

Real Estate Sales Agents vs Retail Salespersons

Real Estate Sales Agents carries the higher exposed share at 46.4% against 44.1%, a gap of 2.3 points. The difference is driven by both capability and friction: the two jobs differ in what a system can produce and in what stops it, by roughly the same amount. Release v2026.Q3.

OccupationExposedAssistedUntouchedCapabilityFrictionMedian payRankBand
Real Estate Sales Agents46.4%26.6%27.0%0.730.39$52,830148exposed
Retail Salespersons44.1%18.9%37.0%0.630.31$35,410194exposed

What stands in the way, in each

Real Estate Sales Agents: the dominant friction is that it runs on knowledge of the organisation that a model cannot hold. Capability sits at 0.73 of 1 and friction at 0.39 of 1.

Retail Salespersons: the dominant friction is that it runs on knowledge of the organisation that a model cannot hold. Capability sits at 0.63 of 1 and friction at 0.31 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.