Will AI replace Telephone Operators?
Office and Administrative Support · O*NET 43-2021.00
Task exposure index for this occupation
Averaged across the week, this work sits in the middle of the exposure scale: a real part of it is already automatable and a real part is not. O*NET breaks Telephone Operators into 11 distinct work activities. Weighted by how much of the week each one takes, 27% of the job sits at or above the threshold where current systems can do the task end to end. The single largest contributor is "Operate communications equipment or systems", which scores 22 and takes roughly 30% of the week. That is the average for the job title. It is not a measurement of any particular person’s week, and the difference between the two is usually larger than the difference between job titles.
Model v1.2 · activity indices last updated 18 August 2026
What this occupation does
Provide information by accessing alphabetical, geographical, or other directories. Assist customers with special billing requests, such as charges to a third party and credits or refunds for incorrectly dialed numbers or bad connections. May handle emergency calls and assist children or people with physical disabilities to make telephone calls.
The most exposed parts of the job
Scored 0–100 on how completely a current system could perform the activity.
- Maintain call records.95
About 4% of a typical week
- Search files, databases or reference materials to obtain needed information.90
About 5% of a typical week
- Proofread documents, records, or other files to ensure accuracy.88
About 5% of a typical week
- Sort mail.82
About 5% of a typical week
- Enter information into databases or software programs.82
About 8% of a typical week
The least exposed parts
The same scale. These are the activities current systems handle worst.
- Assist disabled or incapacitated individuals.18
About 16% of a typical week
- Assist individuals with paperwork.18
About 9% of a typical week
- Operate communications equipment or systems.22
About 30% of a typical week
- Promote products, services, or programs.42
About 3% of a typical week
- Discuss account status or activity with customers or patrons.42
About 5% of a typical week
How far off the rest is
Of those 11 activities, 5 can be performed by systems available today and 3 are outside what current approaches do at all. The remaining 3 sit in between — demonstrated in research or in narrow products, but not something you can hand over whole. We do not put dates on that middle group, because nobody can.
Compared with similar occupations
The nearest scoring roles in Office and Administrative Support.
- Telephone Operators (this page)42
- Couriers and Messengers42
- Office Machine Operators, Except Computer42
- Cargo and Freight Agents43
Why your own number is different
Two people with the title "Telephone Operators" can spend their weeks on almost entirely different parts of this list, and the parts they choose move the number far more than the title does. Who signs off when the work is wrong, whether the job needs you physically present, and how fast you have picked up the tools all change it again — and none of that is in an occupation average.
The assessment asks you to divide your own week across these activities and answer fourteen questions about the parts of the job an occupation average cannot see. It takes six to nine minutes.
Score my own roleFree to take. The full report is a paid subscription — the price and its terms are on the pricing section, before you start.
Questions
Will AI replace Telephone Operators?
We do not answer that, because nobody can. What is measurable is how much of the work is already doable by machine: for Telephone Operators, about 27% of a typical week, across 11 activities. The other 73% is not, and what happens to the job depends on things this index does not contain — cost, regulation, who carries the liability, and what the people doing it decide to do next.
What part of this job is most exposed?
"Maintain call records" — it scores 95 out of 100 on task automatability and takes roughly 4% of the week.
What part is least exposed?
"Assist disabled or incapacitated individuals", at 18 out of 100. Work like that is where the hours you protect tend to be worth the most.
Where do these numbers come from?
The activity list and the time weights come from O*NET 30.3, the US Department of Labor's occupational database. The exposure score for each activity is ours, from a published model — the weights, the priors and the limitations are all on the methodology page. No language model is involved in the arithmetic.
Does this apply to my job?
Only roughly. This is the average for the title, and the number that matters is the one for the week you actually work. The assessment asks you to divide your own time across these activities and answer fourteen questions about accountability, the parts of the job that need you specifically, and how fast you have adapted. That produces a different number, and usually a more useful one.
The full model — the weights, the priors and what it cannot see — is on the methodology page.