Will AI replace restaurant cooks?

Not on current evidence. Less than 30 minutes of a typical shift goes to tasks that AI or robots are doing today. The other 7h 53m (99%) stays with people. Separately, BLS expects about 12.1% more of these jobs by 2035 (all jobs: +3.5%).

AI shows up regularly in 1 of 20 tasks, about 7m of a typical shift. The biggest ones:

• Plan and price menu items. (6m a shift, AI mostly does it alone)

Not in workplaces like this one, based on a 2026 review of robot deployments. 15 more tasks have only been done in factory setups built around the machine, so they stay with people here. For 1 physical task, no robot has shown it can do the work yet.

7h 53m of a typical shift, or 99%, goes to tasks with no AI or robot evidence yet. No AI usage or robot deployment has shown up for these so far. The biggest:

• Season and cook food according to recipes or personal judgment and experience. (1h 23m a shift)
• Portion, arrange, and garnish food, and serve food to waiters or patrons. (51m a shift)
• Inspect and clean food preparation areas, such as equipment, work surfaces, and serving areas, to ensure safe and sanitary food-handling practices. (45m a shift)
• Bake, roast, broil, and steam meats, fish, vegetables, and other foods. (45m a shift)
• Weigh, measure, and mix ingredients according to recipes or personal judgment, using various kitchen utensils and equipment. (38m a shift)

Much of it comes down to where and how the work happens. In-person, hands-on and high-stakes work is where AI and robots have made the least headway so far. In the official O*NET survey of people in this job:

• 95% spend more than half the day on their feet
• 93% use their hands on tools, objects or controls more than half the time
• 86% work at arm's length or closer to other people

We track 2 sourced company moves that affect this job. Most recent:

• Dec 26, 2025: Sweetgreen sells Spyce to Wonder and keeps its robot Infinite Kitchen (Widespread)
• Apr 11, 2025: Sweetgreen plans to add 25 more automated Infinite Kitchens in 2025 (Plan)

On Indeed, job postings in the Food Preparation & Service sector are at 96% of their February 2020 level (all U.S. postings: 104%), down 3.1% from a year earlier, as of Oct 9, 2026. BLS separately expects about 219,000 openings a year in this job through 2035. Across all U.S. postings, 7.3% now mention AI skills. Sector postings cover more than this one job and move for many reasons besides AI.

The median pay is about $37,390 a year ($17.98 an hour), 27% below the median for all U.S. jobs ($50,980). Most people in this job earn between $28,700 and $47,900 a year; that range covers the middle 80%. Pay figures are from BLS, May 2025, and vary a lot by state and employer. Pick a state to compare:

BLS projects growth of 12.1% from 2025 to 2035, compared with 3.5% growth for all jobs. That's about 1.6 million jobs in 2035. It expects about 219,000 openings a year, mostly from people retiring or changing careers. These projections don't single out AI as a cause.

About 1.4 million people in the U.S., roughly 0.91% of all workers (BLS, May 2025). That makes it the 23rd largest of the 796 jobs on this site. BLS expects about 1.6 million in 2035.

The most common requirement is a high school diploma: about 47% of people in the job said so in the official O*NET survey. O*NET rates the job at level 2 of 5 for preparation, which usually means: high school diploma, some training. Requirements vary by state and employer, especially for licensed work.

These come from the job's official skill ratings and from the tasks that AI and robots touch least today. Building them keeps you strong in the parts of the work that still need a person:

• Skills that matter more here than in most jobs: Time Management, Monitoring, Speaking, Critical Thinking
• Get strong at the parts of the job that stay with people (listed above), which take 7h 53m of a typical shift
• Tools employers list: Facebook, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Office software, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word
• Learn to use AI well on the tasks where it already shows up in this job (listed above)

These use similar skills. Matches come from 109 official ratings of skills, knowledge and work activities, and each needs the same or less preparation unless the official list relates the jobs directly:

• Dishwashers (3h 56m touched, $35k median pay)
• Sewing Machine Operators (19m touched, $37k median pay)
• Short Order Cooks (1h 36m touched, $36k median pay)
• Tapers (3h 41m touched, $68k median pay)
• Fast Food Cooks (2h 13m touched, $31k median pay)

Each task carries its own evidence label. For this job: 1 observed in real AI use, 19 with no AI or robot evidence found. The minutes per task are estimates, not measured hours, and "no evidence" doesn't prove a task is safe.