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Professionals · code 2651

Visual artists

AI can generate an image in seconds. Making art that means something is still your job.

AI barely touches six of the eight tasks, like engraving, etching and carving sculpture. Arranging subjects and drawing cartoons are mostly out of its reach too.

What they actually do (and what else they get called)

Visual artists create and execute works of art by sculpting, painting, drawing, creating cartoons, engraving or using other techniques. Tasks include - (a) conceiving and developing ideas, designs and styles for paintings, drawings and sculptures; (b) arranging objects, positioning models, and selecting landscapes and other visual forms according to chosen subject matter; (c) selecting artistic media, method and materials; (d) creating representational or abstract three-dimensional or relief forms by shaping, carving and working and combining materials such as wood, stone, clay, metal, ice or paper; (e) creating representational or abstract drawings and paintings using pencils, ink, chalk, oil paints, water colours or through the application of other techniques; (f) creating drawings and engraving or etching them on metal, wood or other materials; (g) creating cartoons to depict persons and events, often in caricature; (h) restoring damaged, soiled and faded paintings and other art objects. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Cartoonist - Ceramic artist - Illustrator - Picture restorer - Portrait painter - Sculptor Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Industrial designer - 2163 - Graphic designer - 2166 - Painting teacher (private tuition) - 2355 - Potter - 7314 - Decorative painter - 7316

  • sculptor
  • glass artist
  • printmaker
  • video artist
  • storyboard artist
  • drawing artist
  • art restorer
  • artistic painter
  • mask maker
  • conceptual artist
  • cartoonist
  • ceramicist

Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.

79 / 100

Mostly holds up against AI

AI can take a few chores off your plate, but most of the day is still yours.

Not the odds you keep your job. It's how much of the everyday work still needs a person, out of 100.

← Robot's turf Human's turf →

The ILO's official verdict: Not Exposed

156 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 8 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 21 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 21 = 79.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Not Exposed”: None of this job's tasks scored high enough to count.

This job rates 44.2 out of 100 for how hands-on it is. The score above only looks at AI tools, not robots, but for work this far from the physical that matters less.

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Visual artists 79

v

Go on, try your partner's job. Or your sibling's. We won't tell.

Man v Bot

Where the bot helps, and where the human wins

Bot

What AI takes

The routine stuff. You may not miss it.

  • Commercial illustration and concept images.
  • Reference gathering and mock-ups.
  • Promotion and selling online.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Painting, sculpting and making by hand.
  • Having something to say.
  • Restoring damaged works.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Working with AI tools as part of a practice.
  • Proving work is human-made.
  • Rights and licensing disputes over training data.

Written by a human, from the ILO's task ratings below. Yes, we see the irony. Read it as one person's take.

Meet your two rivals

They're not the same machine. AI software can only reach the parts of a job done on a screen or in words. A chatbot can't climb a ladder. A robot might, one day, if it doesn't fall off.

The AI

Lives in a screen. Never had to fix a boiler.

Threat level: Low

33 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 61 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Some

44 how hands-on

A fair part of this job is hands-on, so robots would be needed for that part, not just software.

So could a robot do the physical part?

Less than half of this job is hands-on. Robots still matter, but for a smaller part of the work, so we don't sort it any further.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 36 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

44 How
hands-on
36 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Less than half hands-on

The small print

They aren't a robot score, and nothing on this page is. Nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to put a number on it. These are the closest thing we have: how hands-on the job is, and how much fiddly, cramped work it takes, which is what Frey and Osborne found hardest for machines.

From O*NET, averaged across 2 US jobs .

finger skill 52.7 · hand skill 50.9 · cramped spaces 5 · averaged · rule: hands-on under 50

estimated O*NET 31.0 BLS occupational crosswalk chain ISCO-08 to 2010 SOC (Aug 2012, rev. Jun 2015); 2010 to 2018 SOC (Nov 2017); O*NET-SOC 2019 taxonomy data 0.8-observed-use measures chosen by Frey & Osborne (2017) · the grouping is a sorting, not a measurement

The job, task by task

Every job is really a bundle of tasks. Here's this one unpacked, with how much of each AI could do, out of 100. The score is the average, and averages can hide a lot.

AI's favourite task here scores 26, against an average of 21. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 26

    Arranging objects, positioning models, and selecting landscapes and other visual forms according to chosen subject matter

    Low
  2. 26

    Creating cartoons to depict persons and events, often in caricature

    Low
  3. 24

    Selecting artistic media, method and materials

    Very Low
  4. 23

    Creating representational or abstract drawings and paintings using pencils, ink, chalk, oil paints, water colours or through the application of other techniques

    Very Low
  5. 21

    Conceiving and developing ideas, designs and styles for paintings, drawings and sculptures

    Very Low
  6. 19

    Restoring damaged, soiled and faded paintings and other art objects.

    Very Low
  7. 15

    Creating drawings and engraving or etching them on metal, wood, or other materials

    Very Low
  8. 15

    Creating representational or abstract three-dimensional or relief forms by shaping, carving and working and combining materials such as, wood, stone, clay, metal, ice or paper

    Very Low

8 tasks · the High to Very Low labels are the ILO's

from the source Working Paper 140, Generative AI and Jobs 2025 index data 0.8-observed-use

Sidekick or replacement?

A tool that makes you faster is a very different thing from one that does the task while you watch. Jobs and Skills Australia measured the two separately, which is handy.

AI helps you
61
AI does it for you
33

Sidekick wins, by 28 points.

How good a match is this?

2 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. Treat the numbers as a rough guide.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 2114, 2324

Meanwhile, in real life…

Everything else here is about what AI could do. This is what people actually did. When they asked Claude for help with this kind of work, did they hand the whole task over, or roll their sleeves up and work through it together?

Out of every 100 conversations

58
42

worked through it together handed it over

The small print

Anthropic publishes this about its own product, and it doesn't feed into any score here. These are people who use Claude, not workers in general, so little use here doesn't mean AI can't reach the job. This job makes up 0.14% of the conversations.

These two add up to 100. The bars elsewhere on the page don't, because each is scored on its own, so we don't put them side by side.

observed use Anthropic Economic Index release 2026-06-26, period beginning 2026-05-01 data 0.8-observed-use 2026-05-01 · Anthropic, about its own product

So, should visual artists be worried?

Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.

This is one of the more unsettled creative jobs. Arranging subjects and drawing cartoons are the most exposed tasks, both Low; painting, sculpting and restoring rate Very Low. Image generators compete with some commercial illustration, but original physical work, commissions and restoration stay human.

Worth remembering: we score tasks, not jobs. When AI takes on a task, the job usually reshuffles around it rather than vanishing.

Where this job could lead

None of the new jobs we've written up start from here yet. Could be you're the first. See the jobs AI is creating →

How are the neighbours doing?

There are 92 jobs in the “Professionals” family, averaging 61. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →