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Plant and machine operators, and assemblers · code 8322

Car, taxi and van drivers

The app already picks the route. Driving is the part a robot would have to take.

Picking the best route is the one task AI could take a fair chunk of, and your satnav got there first. Helping passengers with luggage and wheelchair access it barely touches.

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

Car, taxi and van drivers drive and tend motorcars and vans to transport passengers, mail or goods. Tasks include - (a) driving and tending passenger vans, cars or taxis; (b) driving and tending cars, vans or small trucks to deliver mail or goods; (c) assisting passengers with handling of luggage; (d) collecting fares, payments for deliveries, or documents certifying deliveries; (e) operating telecommunications equipment to report location and availability, and following directions of control centre; (f) determining most appropriate route; (g) assisting physically challenged passengers; (h) operating equipment to facilitate the loading and unloading of physically challenged passengers. Examples of the occupations classified here: - Ambulance driver - Car driver - Parking valet - Taxi driver - Van driver Some related occupations classified elsewhere: - Driver (motorized rickshaw) - 8321 - Bus driver - 8331 - Heavy truck driver - 8332 - Pedal vehicle driver - 9331 - Rickshaw puller - 9331 - Animal-drawn vehicle driver - 9332

  • patient transport services driver
  • private chauffeur
  • armoured car driver
  • parking valet
  • delivery driver
  • taxi driver
  • hearse driver

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

72 / 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: Exposed: Gradient 1

220 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 27.6 out of 100, so it holds up at 100 − 27.6 = 72.4.

That's the whole sum. No black box, no secret sauce: you can check it against the ILO's study. ILO group “Exposed: Gradient 1”: The mildest of the ILO’s four “exposed” groups.

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 69 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?

Car, taxi and van drivers 72

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.

  • Route planning and navigation.
  • Dispatch and job allocation by app.
  • Payments and delivery confirmations.

Man

What people still do better

Judgement, trust and skilled hands. Hard to download.

  • Driving safely in real traffic.
  • Helping passengers, including disabled passengers.
  • Handling luggage and deliveries.

Both

What's arriving

New work that only exists because the AI does.

  • Robotaxis in some cities.
  • Electric vehicles and charging.
  • Supporting and monitoring self-driving fleets.

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: Medium

38 could do without you

It could take over some of the work, and help with more. It could help with 57 of 100.

The robot

The wildcard. Has hands, still working out stairs.

How much it matters here: Higher

69 how hands-on

Most of this job needs hands, a body or turning up. That's robot territory, and nobody measures how far robots have got well enough to give you a number. We won't make one up.

So could a robot do the physical part?

Less fine handwork and fewer cramped spaces than a typical hands-on job. That clears one hurdle for machines. It doesn't mean machines are doing this work yet.

Robots hate fiddly work in awkward spaces. On that measure, this job scores 38 out of 100. The higher it is, the longer the robot waits.

69 How
hands-on
38 How fiddly
and cramped

Kind of hands-on work Hands-on, less fiddly work

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 6 US jobs .

finger skill 36.8 · hand skill 38.8 · cramped spaces 38.2 · averaged · rule: hands-on 50+ · fiddly under 39.4

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 74, against an average of 28. The bigger the gap, the more lopsided the job: some of it wide open to AI, some of it barely touched.

  1. 74

    Determining most appropriate route

    Medium
  2. 49

    Operating telecommunications equipment to report location and availability, and follow directions of control centre

    Low
  3. 35

    Collecting fares, payments for deliveries, or documents certifying deliveries

    Low
  4. 17

    Driving and tending passenger, vans, cars or taxis

    Very Low
  5. 17

    Driving and tending cars, vans or small trucks to deliver mail or goods

    Very Low
  6. 12

    Assisting physically challenged passengers

    Very Low
  7. 10

    Assisting passengers with handling of luggage

    Very Low
  8. 8

    Operating equipment to facilitate the loading and unloading of physically challenged passengers.

    Very 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
57
AI does it for you
38

Sidekick wins, by 19 points.

How good a match is this?

4 Australian jobs match this one, and we've simply averaged them. 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 4111, 5612, 7311, 7321

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 0.03% 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

37
63

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 taxi, car and van drivers be worried?

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

Not about AI chatbots, but self-driving cars are the real question. Route planning is rated Medium, and reporting to dispatch and taking payment are Low; driving and helping passengers rate Very Low. Robotaxis run in a few cities, so this is a job to watch.

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 “Plant and machine operators, and assemblers” family, averaging 80. This one is below the family average.

Pit this against any other job →