Are restaurant jobs safe from AI? Cooks, institution and cafeteria leads this list, with 0m of a typical 8-hour shift touched by AI or robots, followed by restaurant cooks and chefs and head cooks. Across the 14 jobs, the median is 1h 4m, so most of each shift is still work people do.
This list covers food service jobs with at least 5,000 workers. "Touched" means time spent on tasks where AI use is documented in real usage data or where robots have done the task in a real workplace. Low numbers reflect today's evidence and can change as AI and robots improve. Each job links to its full time card, pay by state and similar jobs.
HumanWith AIAIRobot
- 1. Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria0m touched · $37k · 441K workers
- 2. Restaurant Cooks7m touched · $37k · 1.4M workers
- 3. Chefs and Head Cooks10m touched · $62k · 200K workers
- 4. Waiters and Waitresses17m touched · $35k · 2.3M workers
- 5. Bartenders46m touched · $34k · 756K workers
- 6. Food Preparation Workers49m touched · $35k · 894K workers
- 7. Fast Food and Counter Workers58m touched · $31k · 3.9M workers
- 8. Nonrestaurant Food Servers1h 4m touched · $35k · 294K workers
- 9. First-Line Supervisors of Food Preparation and Serving Workers1h 13m touched · $44k · 1.2M workers
- 10. Dining Room and Cafeteria Attendants and Bartender Helpers1h 19m touched · $34k · 543K workers
- 11. Short Order Cooks1h 36m touched · $36k · 139K workers
- 12. Fast Food Cooks2h 13m touched · $31k · 641K workers
- 13. Hosts and Hostesses, Restaurant, Lounge, and Coffee Shop3h 37m touched · $31k · 433K workers
- 14. Dishwashers3h 56m touched · $35k · 477K workers