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Clerical support workers · code 4120

Secretaries (general)

AI already manages diaries and drafts letters. This job is changing fast.

Screening meeting requests and organising meetings is the one task AI could do most of, and it could take a fair chunk of six more. Handling the post is mostly out of its reach.

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

Secretaries (general) use typewriters, personal computers or other word processing equipment to transcribe correspondence and other documents, check and format documents prepared by other staff, deal with incoming and outgoing mail, screen requests for meetings or appointments, and perform a variety of administrative support tasks. Tasks include - (a) checking, formatting and transcribing correspondence, minutes and reports from dictation, electronic documents or written drafts to conform to office standards, using typewriter, personal computer or other word processing equipment; (b) using various computer software packages including spreadsheets to provide administrative support; (c) dealing with incoming or outgoing mail; (d) scanning, recording and distributing mail, correspondence and other documents; (e) screening requests for meetings or appointments and helping to organize meetings; (f) screening and recording staff members’ leave and other entitlements; (g) organizing and supervising filing systems; (h) dealing with routine correspondence on their own initiative. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Secretary - Typing secretary - Word processing secretary Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Administrative secretary - 3343 - Executive assistant - 3343 - Legal secretary - 3342 - Medical secretary - 3344

  • secretary

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

42 / 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 3

410 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 57.7 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 57.7 = 42.3.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Exposed: Gradient 3”: Most of the tasks are affected.

This job rates 24.6 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?

Secretaries (general) 42

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.

  • Scheduling meetings.
  • Correspondence and transcription.
  • Filing and records.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Judgement about priorities.
  • Confidential matters.
  • Helping people in person.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • AI assistants.
  • Office and operations roles.
  • Managing AI tools.

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: High

67 could do without you

It could take over a lot of this job on its own. It could help with 69 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Lower

25 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 16 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

25 How
hands-on
16 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, matched to one US job .

finger skill 23.1 · hand skill 19.7 · cramped spaces 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 76, against an average of 58. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 76

    Screening requests for meetings or appointments and helping to organize meetings

    High
  2. 64

    Dealing with routine correspondence on their own initiative.

    Medium
  3. 64

    Checking, formatting and transcribing correspondence, minutes and reports from dictation, electronic documents or written drafts to conform to office standards, using typewriter, personal computer or other word processing equipment

    Medium
  4. 56

    Screening and recording staff-members' leave and other entitlements

    Medium
  5. 55

    Using various computer software packages including spreadsheets to provide administrative support

    Medium
  6. 55

    Organizing and supervising filing systems

    Medium
  7. 52

    Scanning, recording and distributing mail, correspondence and documents

    Medium
  8. 41

    Dealing with incoming or outgoing mail

    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
69
AI does it for you
67

Sidekick wins, by 2 points.

How good a match is this?

One Australian job matches this one closely, so this is about as reliable as it gets here.

estimated Our Gen AI Transition (Gen AI Capacity Study) September 2025 detailed data release data 0.8-observed-use matched to Australian jobs 5212

So, should secretaries be worried?

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

Yes, this is one of the most exposed jobs. Screening meeting requests is rated High; correspondence, transcription, leave records, software, filing and mail are Medium; handling mail is Low. AI assistants do much of this work.

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 29 jobs in the “Clerical support workers” family, averaging 47. This one is below the family average.

Pit this against any other job →