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Clerical support workers · code 4227

Survey and market research interviewers

Online surveys and AI interviewers are taking over. Getting an honest answer on the doorstep is harder.

Asking survey questions and recording answers are where AI could take a fair chunk. Getting hold of people and sorting out answers that don't add up are mostly out of its reach.

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

Survey and market research interviewers interview people and record their responses to survey and market research questions on a range of topics. Tasks include - (a) contacting individuals by telephone or in person and explaining the purpose of the interview; (b) asking questions following the outlines of questionnaires and surveys; (c) recording responses on paper or entering responses directly into a computer database through computer-assisted interviewing systems; (d) identifying and resolving inconsistencies in responses; (e) providing feedback to survey sponsors concerning problems in obtaining valid data. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Market research interviewer - Public opinion interviewer - Survey interviewer

  • market research interviewer
  • survey enumerator

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

45 / 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

394 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 54.8 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 54.8 = 45.2.

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 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?

Survey and market research interviewers 45

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.

  • Asking scripted questions.
  • Recording answers.
  • Reporting problems.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Persuading people to take part.
  • Face-to-face interviews.
  • Handling sensitive topics.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • AI-run interviews.
  • Online panels.
  • Checking for fake and bot responses.

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

71 could do without you

It could take over a lot of this job on its own. It could help with 64 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 26 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

27 How
hands-on
26 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 25 · hand skill 14.3 · cramped spaces 37.5 · 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 69, against an average of 55. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 69

    Recording responses on paper or entering responses directly into a computer database through computer-assisted interviewing systems

    Medium
  2. 68

    Asking questions following the outlines of questionnaires and surveys

    Medium
  3. 61

    Providing feedback to survey sponsors concerning problems in obtaining valid data.

    Medium
  4. 42

    Identifying and resolving inconsistencies in responses

    Low
  5. 35

    Contacting individuals by telephone or in person and explaining the purpose of the interview

    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
64
AI does it for you
71

Replacement wins, by 7 points. That's rare.

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 5615

So, should survey interviewers be worried?

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

Yes, much of this job is exposed. Recording responses, asking questions and feedback to sponsors are rated Medium; resolving inconsistencies and contacting people are Low. Online and AI-run surveys already do most 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 →