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Professionals · code 2656

Announcers on radio, television and other media

AI voices can read the news. A presenter people trust is harder to replace.

Prepping background for programmes and reading the news are where AI could take a fair chunk. Introducing guests and interviewing people are mostly out of its reach.

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

Announcers on radio, television and other media read news bulletins, conduct interviews, and make other announcements or introductions on radio, television, and in theatres and other establishments or media. Tasks include - (a) reading news bulletins and making other announcements on radio or television; (b) introducing performing artists or persons being interviewed, and making related announcements on radio, television, or in theatres, night clubs and other establishments; (c) interviewing persons in public, especially on radio and television; (d) studying background information in order to prepare for programmes or interviews; (e) commenting on music and other matters, such as weather or traffic conditions. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Radio announcer - Television announcer - News anchor - Sports announcer - Talk show host/hostess - Traffic reporter - Weather reporter Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Journalist - 2642

  • presenter
  • news anchor
  • audio describer

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

53 / 100

Changing significantly

AI could do a real share of the everyday tasks. The job is changing shape, not vanishing.

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: Exposed: Gradient 2

366 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 5 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 47.3 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 47.3 = 52.7.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Exposed: Gradient 2”: A good share of the tasks are affected.

This job rates 26.8 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?

Announcers on radio, television and other media 53

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.

  • Research and preparation.
  • Reading news bulletins.
  • Scripted announcements.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Live interviews.
  • Personality and rapport with audiences.
  • Unscripted moments.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • AI voices and avatars.
  • Podcasts and streaming.
  • Audio description.

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

41 could do without you

It could take over some of the work, and help with more. It could help with 68 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

27 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 17 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

27 How
hands-on
17 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 20.5 · hand skill 19.6 · cramped spaces 11.5 · 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 64, against an average of 47. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 64

    Studying background information in order to prepare for programmes or interviews

    Medium
  2. 54

    Reading news bulletins and making other announcements on radio or television

    Medium
  3. 44

    Commenting on music and other matters, such as weather or traffic conditions.

    Low
  4. 42

    Introducing performing artists or persons being interviewed, and making related announcements on radio and television, or in theatres, night-clubs and other establishments

    Low
  5. 34

    Interviewing persons in public, especially on radio and television

    Low

5 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
68
AI does it for you
41

Sidekick wins, by 27 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 2121

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

64
36

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 0.1% 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 presenters and announcers be worried?

Short answer: not worried, but paying attention. The job is changing.

Parts of it are exposed. Research and reading bulletins are rated Medium; commentary, introductions and interviews are Low. Synthetic voices are already reading some bulletins, so personality and live interviewing matter more.

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 below the family average.

Pit this against any other job →