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STRATUSWORKFORCE SCAN
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Subsector, 441

Motor Vehicle and Parts Dealers

2,043,570 people work in this industry in the US, at mean pay of $57,800 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
21%

of the paid hours. Estimate.

$32B

a year: 888 million hours at what they cost. Not a forecast of savings.

Kinds of work
  • 28%
  • 14%
  • 58%
4%

of the paid hours are within reach now in tasks people already bring to Claude. Another 17% 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: 28% 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, 3%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 19%. Today's estimate: 21%.

0%10%20%30%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: 1% within reachClaude 3.7 Sonnet, February 2025: 3% within reacho3, April 2025: 8% within reachGPT-5, August 2025: 10% within reachGemini 3 Pro, November 2025: 13% within reachClaude Opus 4.5, November 2025: 13% within reachGPT-5.2, December 2025: 14% within reachClaude Opus 4.6, February 2026: 14% within reachClaude Mythos Preview (early), April 2026: 19% within reachToday (estimate), September 2026: 21% 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 95% of the people.

PeoplePay here
Retail Salespersons309,01019%125 million$41K
Parts Salespersons195,19020%80 million$37K
Counter and Rental Clerks70,71053%78 million$48K
Customer Service Representatives46,50064%62 million$41K
Bookkeeping, Accounting, and Auditing Clerks32,76078%53 million$46K
Office Clerks, General45,58054%51 million$40K
First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers81,47028%48 million$61K
First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers57,16027%32 million$73K
Receptionists and Information Clerks25,23059%31 million$36K
General and Operations Managers64,53023%31 million$98K
Sales Managers44,72028%26 million$132K
Light Truck Drivers102,20011%24 million$31K

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. 153 smaller jobs (111,020 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. Maintain knowledge of current sales and promotions, policies regarding payment and exchanges, and security practices.Retail Salespersons
    37 million hours50% of the task within reach
  2. Maintain records related to sales.Retail Salespersons
    20 million hours100% of the task within reach
  3. Develop or implement electronic maintenance programs or computer information management systems.First-Line Supervisors of Mechanics, Installers, and Repairers
    18 million hours96% of the task within reach
  4. Manage shipments by researching shipping methods or costs and tracking packages.Parts Salespersons
    18 million hours100% of the task within reach
  5. Assist customers, such as responding to customer complaints and updating them about back-ordered parts.Parts Salespersons
    18 million hours100% of the task within reach
  6. Inventory stock and requisition new stock.Retail Salespersons
    18 million hours20% of the task within reach
  7. Establish credit policies and operating procedures.First-Line Supervisors of Retail Sales Workers
    16 million hours100% of the task within reach
  8. Read catalogs, microfiche viewers, or computer displays to determine replacement part stock numbers and prices.Parts Salespersons
    16 million hours100% of the task within reach
  9. Receive payment or obtain credit authorization.Parts Salespersons
    16 million hours100% of the task within reach
  10. Prepare sales slips or sales contracts.Parts Salespersons
    13 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.

Inside 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