Professionals · code 2655
Actors
AI can read the script. Whether it can act is exactly the fight this job is having.
Reading scripts and researching roles is the one task AI could take a fair chunk of. Learning lines and performing on stage and screen it barely touches.
What they actually do (and what else they get called)
Actors portray roles in motion pictures, television or radio productions and stage shows. Tasks include - (a) learning lines and cues and playing parts in dramatic productions on stage, commercials, television, radio or in motion pictures; (b) assuming characters created by a playwright or author and communicating this to an audience; (c) telling stories or reading literary works aloud to educate or entertain listeners; (d) attending auditions and casting calls in order to audition for roles; (e) preparing for performances through rehearsals under the instruction and guidance of production directors; (f) reading scripts and undertaking research to gain understanding of parts, themes and characteristics; (g) acting parts and portraying roles as developed in rehearsals in film, television, radio and stage productions. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Actor - Mime artist - Storyteller Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Stunt artist - 3435 - Walker-on - 3435
- actor/actress
Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.
69 / 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.
The ILO's official verdict: Minimal Exposure
254 of 427 for holding up against AI
Not quite your week? Make it yours ↓
Why this score?
The ILO rated each of this job's 7 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 31.4 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 31.4 = 68.6.
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 32.4 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?
Actors 69
vGo 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.
- Script research and preparation.
- Audiobook and voice-over narration.
- Self-taped auditions.
Man
What people still do better
Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.
- Live stage performance.
- Creating a character with others.
- Taking direction in the room.
Both
What's arriving
New work that only exists because the AI does.
- Consent and pay rules for digital replicas.
- Voice and likeness licensing.
- Motion capture work.
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
24 could do without you
It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 58 of 100.
The robot
The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.
How much it matters here: Lower
32 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 19 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.
hands-on
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, matched to one US job .
finger skill 14.3 · hand skill 14.3 · cramped spaces 29.3 · 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 56, against an average of 31. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.
- 56
Reading scripts and undertaking research to gain understanding of parts, themes and characteristics
Medium - 44
Telling stories or reading literary works aloud to educate or entertain listeners
Low - 32
Assuming characters created by a playwright or author and communicating this to an audience
Low - 31
Preparing for performances through rehearsals under the instruction and guidance of production directors
Low - 27
Attending auditions and casting calls in order to audition for roles
Low - 20
Learning lines and cues and playing parts in dramatic productions on stage, commercials, television, radio or in motion pictures
Very Low - 12
Acting parts and portraying roles as developed in rehearsals in film, television, radio and stage productions.
Very 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
New · the weekly task audit
Your week, your score
The score above assumes actors spend the same time on every task. You don't. Slide each task to how much of your week it takes, and we'll re-weight the same ILO ratings to fit your job.
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
- Some
Your score
69 / 100
Same as the job as a whole, so far.
Move the sliders to make it yours.
The job as a whole: 69 / 100
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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
- 58
- AI does it for you
- 24
Sidekick wins, by 34 points.
How good a match is this?
One Australian job matches, but only partly: not everyone in it does this job. 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 2111
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
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 0.16% 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 actors be worried?
Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.
This is one of the jobs where AI is genuinely contested. Reading scripts and research is rated Medium, and reading aloud, portraying characters, rehearsing and auditions are Low; playing parts on stage and screen rates Very Low. Synthetic voices and digital replicas were central to the 2023 Hollywood strikes, and live performance still depends on actors.
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.
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- Paramedical practitioners 77
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- Audiologists and speech therapists 76
- Nursing professionals 75
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- Secondary education teachers 70
- Midwifery professionals 70
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- Judges 69
- Electrical engineers 69