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Service and sales workers · code 5414

Security guards

Cameras and AI can watch every door. Someone still has to walk over and deal with it.

Controlling who gets into the building is mostly out of AI's reach. It barely touches five of the six tasks, including responding to alarms, patrolling and moving cash.

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

Security guards patrol or monitor premises to guard property against theft and vandalism. They control access to establishments and maintain order and enforce regulations at public events and within establishments. Tasks include - (a) patrolling premises and checking doors, windows and gates to prevent and detect signs of unauthorized entry; (b) controlling access to establishments, monitoring and authorizing the entrance or departure of employees and visitors, checking identification and issuing security passes; (c) circulating among visitors, patrons or employees to preserve order, protect property from theft or vandalism and enforce the regulations of the establishment; (d) responding to alarms, investigating disturbances and contacting superiors, police or firefighters as appropriate; (e) performing security checks of passengers and luggage at airports; (f) picking up and ensuring the safe delivery of cash and valuables to banks, automated teller machines and retail establishments. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Bodyguard - Doorkeeper - Museum guard - Security guard - Security patrolman/woman - Watchman/woman Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Beach patrolman/woman - 5419 - Lifeguard - 5419

  • security guard

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

80 / 100

Mostly holds up against AI

AI can take a few chores off your plate, but most of the day is still yours.

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

145 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 20.2 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 20.2 = 79.8.

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.

This job rates 46.9 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?

Security guards 80

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.

  • AI video monitoring and alerts.
  • Automated access control and ID checks.
  • Incident logs.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Responding to alarms and incidents in person.
  • Calming situations and dealing with the public.
  • Patrols and physical checks.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Operating AI camera systems.
  • Drones and robots for patrols on large sites.
  • Cybersecurity awareness on site.

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

33 could do without you

It could take over very little of the work on its own. It could help with 61 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Some

47 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?

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

47 How
hands-on
28 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 4 US jobs .

finger skill 30.4 · hand skill 29 · cramped spaces 23.7 · 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 37, against an average of 20. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 37

    Controlling access to establishments, monitoring and authorizing the entrance or departure of employees and visitors, checking identification and issuing security passes

    Low
  2. 24

    Responding to alarms, investigating disturbances and contacting superiors, police or fire fighters as appropriate

    Very Low
  3. 18

    Performing security checks of passengers and luggage at airports

    Very Low
  4. 16

    Patrolling premises and checking doors, windows and gates to prevent and detect signs of unauthorised entry

    Very Low
  5. 15

    Picking up and ensuring the safe delivery of cash and valuables to banks, automated teller machines and retail establishments.

    Very Low
  6. 13

    Circulating among visitors, patrons, or employees to preserve order, protect property from theft or vandalism and enforce the regulations of the establishment

    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
61
AI does it for you
33

Sidekick wins, by 28 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 4422

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 under 0.01% of all the conversations: a tiny slice. People using AI for a job isn't the same as AI being able to do it.

Out of every 100 conversations

30
70

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.

The data is sorted by US job, and this one matches 4 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 security guards be worried?

Short answer: not much. Some of the chores will change, and good riddance.

Somewhat. Controlling access and checking ID is the most exposed task, rated Low; responding to alarms, patrolling and handling people rate Very Low. AI video analytics and automated gates take over some watching and checking, so the job leans towards responding and dealing with people.

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.

Pit this against any other job →