Will AI replace Occupational Therapy Aides?

What this score means

Occupational Therapy Aides is among the least exposed roles in Healthcare. Most of what the job involves still sits outside what current AI can do, even as the tools around it keep changing. At 18 out of 100 it scores 8 points below the Healthcare average of 26. Across the 3 sources behind this baseline, individual estimates run from 7 to 25, so the score is a weighted consensus rather than any single figure.

The number is a consensus estimate for the typical version of the role, built from published academic and industry research scored occupation by occupation. It is not a prediction about any individual. How scoring works

What this job actually involves

Exposure follows the work itself rather than the job title, so it is worth seeing what the role is made of. These are the tasks O*NET records for Occupational Therapy Aides, most central first, showing 12 of 15.

• 01Encourage patients and attend to their physical needs to facilitate the attainment of therapeutic goals.
• 02Report to supervisors or therapists, verbally or in writing, on patients' progress, attitudes, attendance, and accomplishments.
• 03Observe patients' attendance, progress, attitudes, and accomplishments and record and maintain information in client records.
• 04Prepare and maintain work area, materials, and equipment and maintain inventory of treatment and educational supplies.
• 05Transport patients to and from the occupational therapy work area.
• 06Instruct patients and families in work, social, and living skills, the care and use of adaptive equipment, and other skills to facilitate home and work adjustment to disability.
• 07Assist occupational therapists in planning, implementing, and administering therapy programs to restore, reinforce, and enhance performance, using selected activities and special equipment.
• 08Demonstrate therapy techniques, such as manual and creative arts and games.
• 09Manage intradepartmental infection control and equipment security.
• 10Perform clerical, administrative, and secretarial duties, such as answering phones, restocking and ordering supplies, filling out paperwork, and scheduling appointments.
• 11Supervise patients in choosing and completing work assignments or arts and crafts projects.
• 12Adjust and repair assistive devices and make adaptive changes to other equipment and to environments.

Task statements from O*NET by the National Center for O*NET Development, used under CC BY 4.0. The tasks are descriptive; the exposure score above is ours.

The research behind this score

This baseline aggregates 3 research sources that scored Occupational Therapy Aides for AI and automation exposure. More recent, higher confidence studies carry more weight in the final number.

• 01Anthropic Economic Index 2026 - AI Task Exposure · 2026
• 02GPTs are GPTs: Labor Market Impact Potential of LLMs · 2024
• 03AI Occupational Exposure to Language Modeling · 2023

Also covers

Certified Occupational Rehabilitation Aide (CORA) · Direct Service Professional (DSP) · Direct Support Professional (DSP) · Independent Living Specialist · Occupational Rehabilitation Aide · Occupational Therapist Aide (OT Aide) · Occupational Therapy Aide (OT Aide) · Rehabilitation Aide (Rehab Aide) and related titles

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