Will AI replace Fast Food and Counter Workers?
Estimated risk score: 29 out of 100
Lower replacement risk
Estimate from published task research, not reviewed by a person · how we estimate
Within about 19 points for 4 in 5 of the jobs we checked (10 to 48).
Low confidence: the research disagrees with itself about this job (its tasks look automatable on paper but are rated as not sped up by AI).
For the occupation as a whole, from ratings of its 28 O*NET tasks published in 2023 and calibrated to our hand scores. A specialty inside it can sit higher or lower.
O*NET-SOC 35-3023.00 · Food Preparation and Serving Related
Tasks rated in 2023 as ones AI could do or speed up
Tasks a GPT-4-class model could do, or do in half the time or less: 6 of its 28 rated tasks; the first 5 are shown. In O*NET’s words.
- Take customers' orders and write ordered items on tickets, giving ticket stubs to customers when needed to identify filled orders.
- Request and record customer orders, and compute bills, using cash registers, multi-counting machines, or pencil and paper.
- Accept payment from customers, and make change as necessary.
- Balance receipts and payments in cash registers.
- Communicate with customers regarding orders, comments, and complaints.
Tasks rated in 2023 as not sped up by AI
Tasks such a model was rated as not speeding up or taking over: 21 of its 28 rated tasks; the first 6 are shown. In O*NET’s words.
- Brew coffee and tea, and fill containers with requested beverages.
- Clean and organize eating, service, and kitchen areas.
- Collect and return dirty dishes to the kitchen for washing.
- Perform cleaning duties, such as sweeping, mopping, and washing dishes, to keep equipment and facilities sanitary.
- Prepare and serve cold drinks, frozen milk drinks, or desserts, using drink-dispensing, milkshake, or frozen-custard machines.
- Prepare daily food items, and cook simple foods and beverages, such as sandwiches, salads, soups, pizza, or coffee, using proper safety precautions and sanitary measures.
What the job is
Perform duties such as taking orders and serving food and beverages. Serve customers at counter or from a steam table. May take payment. May prepare food and beverages.
Also called: Counter Worker, Soda Clerk, Cafe Server, Cafe Worker, Counter Hop, Deli Worker, Line Person, Soda Jerker.
Source. This site includes information from the O*NET 30.1 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA. USDOL/ETA has not approved, endorsed, or tested these modifications. (O*NET, CC BY 4.0.) Task ratings: Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin and Rock (2023), “GPTs are GPTs: An Early Look at the Labor Market Impact Potential of Large Language Models”, data used under the MIT licence (licence texts). Our change: we averaged the ratings over this occupation’s tasks and calibrated them to our 0–100 scale. It is not a prediction about any one person and not career advice. Disagree? Write to hello@yourstopwashit.com. How we estimate