Service and sales workers · code 5413
Prison guards
Cameras can watch the corridor. Only a person can calm a wing down.
AI barely touches any of the seven tasks, from patrolling and watching prisoners to supervising work and helping with rehabilitation.
What they actually do (and what else they get called)
Prison guards watch over and maintain order among inmates of prisons, reformatories or penitentiaries. Tasks include - (a) searching arriving prisoners, putting their valuables in safekeeping, escorting prisoners to cells and locking them in; (b) making periodic inspection tours of cells and inspecting and maintaining the security of locks, windows, doors and gates; (c) supervising prisoners at work and meals, and during recreation periods; (d) observing the conduct and behaviour of prisoners to prevent disturbances and escapes; (e) patrolling prison areas to prevent escapes; (f) assisting with the implementation of rehabilitation programmes; (g) escorting prisoners in transit and during temporary leave. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Prison guard
- prison officer
- juvenile correctional officer
Job titles from the EU's ESCO list. Search for any of them on the jobs page and you'll end up here.
86 / 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.
The ILO's official verdict: Not Exposed
57 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 13.8 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 13.8 = 86.2.
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 50 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?
Prison guards 86
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.
- CCTV monitoring and alerts.
- Incident reports and records.
- Scanning for contraband.
Man
What people still do better
Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.
- Calming tense situations.
- Supervising people face to face.
- Supporting rehabilitation.
Both
What's arriving
New work that only exists because the AI does.
- Body cameras and digital records.
- Stopping drones and phones smuggling items in.
- More focus on rehabilitation programmes.
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 45 of 100.
The robot
The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.
How much it matters here: Some
50 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 35 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.
hands-on
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 35.8 · hand skill 37.5 · cramped spaces 32.9 · 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 22, against an average of 14. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.
- 22
Assisting with the implementation of rehabilitation programmes
Very Low - 17
Supervising prisoners at work and meals, and during recreation periods
Very Low - 15
Making periodic inspection tours of cells and inspecting and maintaining the security of locks, windows, doors and gates
Very Low - 12
Escorting prisoners in transit and during temporary leave.
Very Low - 11
Searching arriving prisoners, putting their valuables in safekeeping, escorting prisoners to cells and locking them in
Very Low - 11
Observing the conduct and behaviour of prisoners to prevent disturbances and escapes
Very Low - 10
Patrolling prison areas to prevent escapes
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 prison officers 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
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Your score
86 / 100
Same as the job as a whole, so far.
Move the sliders to make it yours.
The job as a whole: 86 / 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
- 45
- AI does it for you
- 24
Sidekick wins, by 21 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 4421
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 0.19% of the conversations.
The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 2 of them. We've combined them, counting each by how often it comes up in the conversations, so the busiest one counts most.
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 prison officers be worried?
Short answer: not really. Put the kettle on.
No. Every task rates Very Low, from supervising and searching to supporting rehabilitation. Surveillance and scanning technology changes parts of the job, but the relationships and judgement that keep a prison safe stay human.
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 39 jobs in the “Service and sales workers” family, averaging 74. This one is above the family average.
- Police officers 86
- Pet groomers and animal care workers 86
- Health care assistants 86
- Personal care workers in health servi… 85
- Undertakers and embalmers 83
- Hairdressers 83
- Beauticians and related workers 82
- Fire-fighters 82
- Cooks 82
- Child care workers 81
- Protective services workers not elsew… 80
- Domestic housekeepers 80
- Security guards 80
- Driving instructors 80
- Personal services workers not elsewhe… 79
- Travel attendants and travel stewards 79
- Companions and valets 78
- Cleaning and housekeeping supervisors… 78
- Street food salespersons 78
- Food service counter attendants 76
- Service station attendants 76
- Teachers' aides 76
- Home-based personal care workers 75
- Fashion and other models 75
- Transport conductors 75
- Bartenders 74
- Building caretakers 73
- Waiters 72