All occupations › ProductionCan AI Replace Food Cooking Machine Operators and Tenders in 2026? Lower exposure. AI could handle about 12% of today's food cooking machine operators and tenders tasks by 2036, and there is a 14% chance the number of jobs falls by a fifth or more. AI mostly assists people in this role.
See how not to be replaced
Timeline Year 2030 Chance of 20%+ fewer jobs
10% 2030 · 14% 2036
One person could cover, 2036
~1 roles
0% 50% 100% 2026 2028 2030 2032 2034 2036 2026: 7% 2027: 7% 2028: 7% 2029: 8% 2030: 9% 2031: 9% 2032: 10% 2033: 11% 2034: 11% 2035: 12% 2036: 12% 9% Share of today's tasks AI can perform 40 80 120 2026 2028 2030 2032 2034 2036 2026: 100 2027: 99 2028: 99 2029: 98 2030: 98 2031: 97 2032: 97 2033: 96 2034: 96 2035: 95 2036: 95 98 Headcount index, 2025 = 100 (dashed line) Your survival map Not every part of your job is at the same risk. Tap a number to see what to do about each task.
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Tap a number on the map or a task below.
1 Clean, wash, and sterilize equipment and cooking area, using water hoses, cleaning or sterilizing solutions, or rinses. 2 Observe gauges, dials, and product characteristics, and adjust controls to maintain appropriate temperature, pressure, and flow of ingredients. 3 Measure or weigh ingredients, using scales or measuring containers. 4 Read work orders, recipes, or formulas to determine cooking times and temperatures, and ingredient specifications. 5 Record production and test data, such as processing steps, temperature and steam readings, cooking time, batches processed, and test results. Your plan Ticks are saved in this browser only.
Try an AI tool on one task you'd normally do by hand: "Read work orders, recipes, or formulas to determine cooking times and temperatures, and ingredient specifications". Get visibly better at your human core: "Clean, wash, and sterilize equipment and cooking area, using water hoses, cleaning or sterilizing solutions, or rinses". Rewrite the top of your CV around judgment, people and decisions, not routine output. Based on 17 O*NET tasks for "Food Cooking Machine Operators and Tenders" (SOC 51-3093.00). LLM alone: 13% of tasks; with AI tools: 13%. Projections are a model, not official statistics. How we calculate this · Data version 2026-10
