Technicians and associate professionals · code 3230

Traditional and complementary medicine associate professionals

AI can look up remedies. It can't set a bone or earn a patient's trust.

AI barely touches four of the six tasks, including traditional treatments and setting fractures. Health advice and referring patients are mostly out of its reach too.

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

Traditional and complementary medicine associate professionals prevent, care for and treat human physical and mental illnesses, disorders and injuries using herbal and other therapies based on theories, beliefs and experiences originating in specific cultures. They administer treatments using traditional techniques and medicaments, either acting independently or according to therapeutic care plans established by a traditional medicine or other health professional. Tasks include - (a) examining patients and interviewing them and their families to determine their health status and the nature of physical or mental disorders or illnesses or other ailments; (b) recommending and providing care and treatment for illnesses and other ailments using traditional techniques and medicaments, such as physical manipulation and exercises, blood-letting using natural vessels, and preparations using herbs, plants, insects and animal extracts; (c) administering treatments such as acupuncture, ayurvedic, homeopathic and herbal medicine according to therapeutic care plans and procedures usually developed by a traditional medicine or other health professional; (d) providing care and treatment for physical injuries such as setting and healing fractured and dislocated bones using traditional methods of physical manipulation and herbal therapies; (e) advising individuals, families and the community on health, nutrition, hygiene, lifestyle and other issues to maintain or improve health and well-being; (f) referring patients to, and exchanging information with, other health care providers to ensure comprehensive and continuing care. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Acupuncture technician - Ayurvedic technician - Bonesetter - Herbalist - Homeopathy technician - Scraping and cupping therapist - Village healer - Witch doctor Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Acupuncturist - 2230 - Ayurvedic practitioner - 2230 - Chinese herbal medicine practitioner - 2230 - Homeopath - 2230 - Naturopath - 2230 - Chiropractor - 2269 - Osteopath - 2269 - Traditional midwife - 3222 - Acupressure therapist - 3255 - Hydrotherapist - 3255 - Faith healer - 3413 Notes Occupations in traditional and complementary for which competent performance requires an extensive understanding of the benefits and applications of traditional and complementary therapies, developed as the result of extended formal study of these techniques as well as human anatomy and elements of modern medicine, are classified in Unit Group 2230: Traditional and Complementary Medicine Professionals. Those occupations whose practice requires a less extensive understanding, based on relatively short periods of formal or informal education and training, or informally through the traditions and practices of the communities where they originated, are included in Unit Group 3230: Traditional and Complementary Medicine Associate Professionals. Practitioners working in the singular application of approaches to herbal medicines, spiritual therapies or manual therapeutic techniques are excluded from Unit Group 2230. Faith healers who treat human ailments through spiritual therapies, without using herbal therapies or other medicaments or physical treatments, are included in Unit Group 3413: Religious Associate Professionals. Occupations that provide therapy using traditional forms of massage and the application of pressure, such as acupressure and shiatsu therapists, are classified in Unit Group 3255: Physiotherapy Technicians and Assistants. Traditional and lay midwives, who provide basic pregnancy and birthing care and advice based primarily on experience and knowledge acquired informally through the traditions and practices of the communities where they originated, are classified in Unit Group 3222: Midwifery Associate Professionals.

herbal therapist

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

81 / 100

Strongly holds up against AI

Most of this job still needs an actual human. AI would mostly be making the tea.

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

127 of 427 for holding up against AI

Why this score?

The ILO rated each of this job's 6 tasks for how much of it AI could do. They average 18.7 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 18.7 = 81.3.

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.

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

Pinch of salt: this number is probably too rosy

It only asks what AI software could do, and this job is 56 out of 100 hands-on. A chatbot can't do that part. A robot might, one day, and nobody measures how close that is.

Man v Bot · compare

Who holds up better?

Traditional and complementary medicine associate professionals 81

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.

Patient records and referrals.
Health information and advice sheets.
Appointment bookings.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

Examining and treating patients by hand.
Building trust over time.
Adapting treatment to each person.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

Working alongside mainstream health services.
Regulation and professional standards.
Online bookings and consultations.

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

29 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 67 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Some

56 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?

Physical work where helping and caring for people is a big part of the job. For care work, whether a machine could do the movements is only half the question. The other half is whether anyone wants one to. The US data counts helping workmates too, so a few trades end up here.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 49 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

56 How
hands-on

49 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, helping and caring for others

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 50.9 · hand skill 44.6 · cramped spaces 52.1 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · caring 4+ of 7

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 33, against an average of 19. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

33
Referring patients to, and exchanging information with, other health care providers to ensure comprehensive and continuing care.

Low
32
Advising individuals, families and the community on health, nutrition, hygiene, lifestyle and other issues to maintain or improve health and well-being

Low
17
Examining patients and interviewing them and their families to determine their health status and the nature of physical or mental disorders or illnesses or other ailments

Very Low
14
Administering treatments such as acupuncture, ayurvedic, homeopathic and herbal medicine according to therapeutic care plans and procedures usually developed by a traditional medicine or other health professional

Very Low
11
Recommending and providing care and treatment for illnesses and other ailments using traditional techniques and medicaments, such as physical manipulation and exercises, blood-letting using natural vessels, and preparations using herbs, plants, insects and animal extracts

Very Low
6
Providing care and treatment for physical injuries such as setting and healing fractured and dislocated bones using traditional methods of physical manipulation and herbal therapies

Very Low

6 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: 67
AI does it for you: 29

Sidekick wins, by 38 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 4515

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?

Tiny sample alert This job makes up 0.05% of all the conversations: a tiny slice, mostly the paperwork rather than the work. People using AI for a job isn't the same as AI being able to do it.

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.

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 traditional medicine practitioners be worried?

Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.

No. The most exposed tasks are referring patients and giving health advice, both Low; examining and treating patients rate Very Low. AI may help with records and information, but treatment is hands-on and relationship-based.

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 82 jobs in the “Technicians and associate professionals” family, averaging 65. This one is above the family average.

Pit this against any other job →