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STRATUSWORKFORCE SCAN
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Industry group, 5418

Advertising, Public Relations, and Related Services

481,600 people work in this industry in the US, at mean pay of $92,910 a year (BLS, May 2025). What follows is how much of their working time the best AI models could finish, when, and in which jobs and tasks. Estimates.

now
28%

of the paid hours. Estimate.

$14B

a year: 273 million hours at what they cost. Not a forecast of savings.

Kinds of work
  • 68%
  • 18%
  • 14%
8%

of the paid hours are within reach now in tasks people already bring to Claude. Another 19% is within reach in tasks not yet seen there.

Across the US: 22% within reach now and 37% by the end of 2028, on the long-run pace at four in five.

Share of the paid hours within reach, now to 2030

0%25%50%75%100%2027202820292030NowDesk work: 68% of the time
Chosen to Ceiling: the share
DateNow
NowEnd of 2030

What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .

How far this has come

With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this industry's paid hours were within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 1%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 22%. Today's estimate: 28%.

0%10%20%30%40%2023202420252026GPT-4, March 2023: 0% within reachGPT-4 Turbo (Nov 2023), November 2023: 0% within reachGPT-4o, May 2024: 0% within reachClaude 3.5 Sonnet (June 2024), June 2024: 0% within reacho1-preview, September 2024: 0% within reachClaude 3.5 Sonnet (Oct 2024), October 2024: 0% within reacho1, December 2024: 0% within reachClaude 3.7 Sonnet, February 2025: 1% within reacho3, April 2025: 4% within reachGPT-5, August 2025: 5% within reachGemini 3 Pro, November 2025: 8% within reachClaude Opus 4.5, November 2025: 8% within reachGPT-5.2, December 2025: 9% within reachClaude Opus 4.6, February 2026: 10% within reachClaude Mythos Preview (early), April 2026: 22% within reachToday (estimate), September 2026: 28% within reach
Each step is a new best model measured by METR, four in five; the dashed end is today's estimate. Point at a dot for the model.

A backcast: today's task data with the best model METR had measured by each date. It shows how fast the models have moved, not what anyone forecast at the time.

Where the hours are

Jobs by hours within reach now. The 40 largest jobs hold 86% of the people.

PeoplePay here
Advertising Sales Agents43,87054%49 million$73K
Graphic Designers19,60051%21 million$61K
Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel21,31043%19 million$71K
General and Operations Managers25,68023%12 million$128K
Customer Service Representatives8,44064%11 million$47K
Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks6,64078%11 million$51K
Public Relations Specialists37,61012%9.7 million$77K
Office Clerks, General8,17054%9.2 million$41K
Art Directors16,04027%8.9 million$121K
Demonstrators and Product Promoters17,36021%7.7 million$37K
Project Management Specialists10,19033%7 million$78K
Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists41,0707%6.2 million$77K

People: BLS counts for this industry, May 2025. Pay here: the median paid for the job in this industry, else its mean, else the national median. 123 smaller jobs (65,610 people) count in every total but are not listed. Task data covers 99% of the industry's people; the rest are in BLS "all other" groups with no task list, or in counts BLS does not publish.

The tasks with the most hours within reach by the end of 2028

Across the whole industry, on the chosen pace and reliability.

  1. Collect and analyze data on customer demographics, preferences, needs, and buying habits to identify potential markets and factors affecting product demand.Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists
    23 million hours90% of the task within reach
  2. Study the objectives, promotional policies, or needs of organizations to develop public relations strategies that will influence public opinion or promote ideas, products, or services.Public Relations Specialists
    18 million hours90% of the task within reach
  3. Identify new advertising markets, and propose products to serve them.Advertising Sales Agents
    14 million hours99% of the task within reach
  4. Maintain assigned account bases while developing new accounts.Advertising Sales Agents
    12 million hours100% of the task within reach
  5. Gather data on competitors and analyze their prices, sales, and method of marketing and distribution.Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists
    10 million hours98% of the task within reach
  6. Develop sales presentations or proposals to explain service specifications.Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel
    9.1 million hours100% of the task within reach
  7. Prepare promotional plans, sales literature, media kits, and sales contracts, using computer.Advertising Sales Agents
    9.1 million hours100% of the task within reach
  8. Devise and evaluate methods and procedures for collecting data, such as surveys, opinion polls, or questionnaires, or arrange to obtain existing data.Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists
    8.3 million hours96% of the task within reach
  9. Conduct research on consumer opinions and marketing strategies, collaborating with marketing professionals, statisticians, pollsters, and other professionals.Market Research Analysts and Marketing Specialists
    7.6 million hours69% of the task within reach
  10. Create designs, concepts, and sample layouts, based on knowledge of layout principles and esthetic design concepts.Graphic Designers
    7 million hours100% of the task within reach

Scan a typical company in this industry

The industry's largest jobs, in the proportions BLS counts across the whole industry, at the pay it pays, run through the company scan. A starting point before you have a roster, or a benchmark for the one you have.

Next to this industry

Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.

How it is built: BLS counts the people in each job in this industry; each job's tasks and their lengths give its share within reach at a date; the industry's share is those shares weighted by people. Value is pay times 1.43 for benefits and payroll costs. Seen in Claude use splits today's share by whether Anthropic saw people bring each task to Claude in 2025; other AI tools are not counted. How it works