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Professionals · code 2654

Film, stage and related directors and producers

AI can rough-cut the edit. Deciding what the film is about is still a director's job.

All seven tasks are mostly out of AI's reach, from writing and editing programmes and haggling over royalties to directing and staging scenes.

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

Film, stage and related directors and producers oversee and control the technical and artistic aspects of motion pictures, television or radio productions and stage shows. Tasks include - (a) choosing writers, studying scripts to determine artistic interpretation, and instructing actors on acting methods; (b) directing all aspects of dramatic productions on stage, television, radio or in motion pictures, including choice of actors, and final decisions concerning costumes, set designs, sound or lighting effects; (c) planning, organizing and controlling the various stages and scheduling involved in the production of presentations, motion pictures, television shows and radio programmes; (d) engaging and supervising all technical personnel, and determining the treatment, scope and scheduling of production; (e) maintaining production archives and negotiating royalties; (f) creating, planning or writing scripts for recording, videotaping and editing programmes; (g) supervising the positioning of scenery, props and lighting and sound equipment. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Documentary director - Film editor - Motion picture director - Photography director - Stage director - Technical director - Technical television or radio director - Theatre producer Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - TV/radio news producer - 2642 - Broadcasting technician - 3521 - Lighting technician - 3521 - Sound technician - 3521 - Video technician - 3521 - Stage manager - 3435

  • post-production supervisor
  • producer
  • radio producer
  • video and motion picture editor

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

64 / 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: Minimal Exposure

290 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 7 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 36.5 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 36.5 = 63.5.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Minimal Exposure”: A few tasks are affected, but the heart of the job isn't.

This job rates 24.3 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?

Film, stage and related directors and producers 64

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.

  • Scripts, edits and rough cuts.
  • Scheduling and production planning.
  • Archives and rights admin.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Creative direction and vision.
  • Working with actors and crews.
  • Final decisions on the work.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Generative AI in production.
  • Rules on AI and performers' rights.
  • Smaller teams making more content.

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: Medium

39 could do without you

It could take over some of the work, and help with more. It could help with 69 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

24 how hands-on

Not much of this job needs hands, so the robot can sit this one out.

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 22 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

24 How
hands-on
22 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 6 US jobs .

finger skill 32.2 · hand skill 26.6 · cramped spaces 5.6 · 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 45, against an average of 37. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 45

    Creating, planning, writing scripts for recording, videotaping and editing programmes

    Low
  2. 41

    Maintaining production archives and negotiating royalties

    Low
  3. 41

    Choosing writers, studying scripts to determine artistic interpretation, and instructing actors on acting methods

    Low
  4. 41

    Planning, organizing and controlling the various stages and scheduling involved in the production of presentations, motion pictures, television shows and radio programmes

    Low
  5. 32

    Engaging and supervising all technical personnel, and determining the treatment, scope and scheduling of production

    Low
  6. 29

    Supervising the positioning of scenery, props and lighting and sound equipment.

    Low
  7. 27

    Directing all aspects of dramatic productions on stage, television, radio or in motion pictures, including choice of actors, and final decisions concerning costumes, set designs, sound or lighting effects

    Low

7 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
69
AI does it for you
39

Sidekick wins, by 30 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 2121, 2123

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

60
40

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 0.29% of the conversations.

The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 6 of them. We've combined them, counting each by how often it comes up in the conversations, so the busiest one counts most.

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 directors, producers and editors be worried?

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

Parts of the work are changing. Scripting and editing, archives and royalties, choosing writers, scheduling, supervising crews, positioning sets and directing all rate Low. AI editing and generation tools speed up production; creative direction stays 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

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 →