Cutters and Trimmers, Hand
In short: today's best AI models could do about 5% of this job's working time (projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index) if the work were set up for them, and about the same by the end of 2028 if progress keeps its long-run pace. The people and hands-on work, about 95% of the time, stays with people.
Use hand tools or hand-held power tools to cut and trim a variety of manufactured items, such as carpet, fabric, stone, glass, or rubber.
6,060 people do this job in the US. $38,020 a year.
A typical 40-hour week
Not yet reviewed task by task- AI could take on2 h
- A person checks AI's work0 h
- Desk work AI can't do yet0 h
- Stays with people38 h
Cutters and Trimmers, Hand, now: of a 40-hour week, AI could take on 2 hours, 0 hours become checking its work, 0 hours are desk work it can't do yet, and 38 hours stay with people.
The largest pieces: Read work orders to determine dimensions, cutting locations, and quantities to cut (about 2 h).
Estimates for a typical week of this job, if progress keeps its long-run pace, counting work the best models finish four times in five. Every task is below.
of the working time. Now is projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index.
- 5%
- 0%
- 95%
of the work: Anthropic's measure of what people already bring to Claude at work (2025). It counts help with part of a task, so it can be higher than the share within reach.
On the chosen pace and reliability. Estimate.
Share of the working time within reach, now to 2030
Change assumptionsHide assumptionsLong-run pace, four in five
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
At this date and pace, models finish tasks up to 2.4 work days long four times in five.
How far this has come
With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this job's working time was within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 3%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 5%. Today's estimate: 5%.
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.
Measured use over time
None of this job's 18 tasks showed up in the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled in any of its 7 releases, from February 2025 to May 2026.
Measured, not estimated: Anthropic's samples of Claude.ai conversations, each tied by a model to an O*NET task, from the Anthropic Economic Index. It says where Claude's use goes, not how much of this job's working time it covers, so it is not on the same scale as the reach above. The releases differ in their sample, their classifier and the smallest share they report (the June 2026 file rounds each task to a hundredth of a percent, so a smaller task reads as none), which is why a change of method starts a new line. At least 96% of each older release's task-tied use matched this site's tasks, and all of the newest. Claude.ai only, so use through other tools and other companies' models is not in it. Every job ranked.
Robots and the physical work
Anthropic rates 96% of this job's working time as physical work. For 96% of the working time, a robot has been shown doing most of the task somewhere: 88% in a purpose-built cell, 8% in a structured facility. 1.04 of 3, the 97th highest of the 923 jobs.
- Not physical 4%
- In a purpose-built cell 88%
- In a structured facility 8%
Anthropic's rating, not this site's estimate: Claude Opus 5, searching the web, rated each physical O*NET task by the kind of setting in which a robot it could cite (deployed, sold or demonstrated) does most of the task, weighted by its own estimate of each task's share of the time (What work can robots do?, September 30, 2026, data CC BY 4.0; every job ranked). A robot shown somewhere is not a robot in your building: cost, setup and safety decide that. The share within reach on this page still counts no body work. The robot behind each rated task is under the task below.
The tasks
Sorted by . 18 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cut, shape, and trim materials, such as textiles, food, glass, stone, and metal, using knives, scissors, and other hand tools, portable power tools, or bench-mounted tools.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, TUKAcut automatic fabric cutting system (Tukatech) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 17% | 17 min4 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Unroll, lay out, attach, or mount materials or items on cutting tables or machines.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Gerber Spreader XLS50 / XLS125 (automated spreading systems) (Lectra) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 11% | 10 min3 min to 33 min | Stays with people | |
| Mark cutting lines around patterns or templates, or follow layout points, using squares, rules, and straightedges, and chalk, pencils, or scribes.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Zund Universal Drawing Tool (UDT) on Zund G3/S3 digital cutters (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 10% | 10 min3 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Stack cut items and load them on racks or conveyors or onto trucks.Done several times a day by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Zünd G3 cutter + RobotFactory Robot PortaTable 130 (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 7% | 10 min3 min to 29 min | Stays with people | |
| Fold or shape materials before or after cutting them.Done several times a day by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Eastman Pacemaker / ES-980 spreading systems (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 6% | 7 min2 min to 21 min | Stays with people | |
| Position templates or measure materials to locate specified points of cuts or to obtain maximum yields, using rules, scales, or patterns.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Zünd G3/Q-Line digital cutting system with camera registration and MindCUT/nesting software (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 6% | 8 min3 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Clean, treat, buff, or polish finished items, using grinders, brushes, chisels, and cleaning solutions and polishing materials.Done daily by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, GrayMatter Robotics GMR-AI robotic finishing cells (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 13 min3 min to 38 min | Stays with people | |
| Adjust guides and stops to control depths and widths of cuts.Done several times a day by most who do it.Robots: in a structured facility, Zünd G3 digital cutter with ITI Initialization System (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 8 min3 min to 21 min | Stays with people | |
| Separate materials or products according to size, weight, type, condition, color, or shade.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a structured facility, Glacier AI sorting robot (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 8 min3 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Read work orders to determine dimensions, cutting locations, and quantities to cut.Done daily by most who do it. | 5% | 7 min3 min to 17 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Trim excess material or cut threads off finished products, such as cutting loose ends of plastic off a manufactured toy for a smoother finish.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Pioneer Industrial Systems robotic deflashing cell (FANUC M-10iA) (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 3 min1 min to 8 min | Stays with people | |
| Replace or sharpen dulled cutting tools such as saws.Done more than monthly by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, DISCO Auto Blade Changer (ABC) on DFD-series dicing saws (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 17 min4 min to 50 min | Stays with people |
Within reach, per task: the share of the task's time whose instances are short enough for a model to finish at the chosen date, pace and reliability. Half by: the date half of that time comes within reach.
Jobs that share skills with this one
From O*NET's related occupations. Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
- Cutting and Slicing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders7% now, 7% by 2028
- Grinding and Polishing Workers, Hand11% now, 11% by 2028
- Sewing Machine Operators2% now, 2% by 2028
- Sawing Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Wood8% now, 8% by 2028
- Woodworking Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Except Sawing9% now, 9% by 2028
- Textile Cutting Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders14% now, 14% by 2028
Where this job works
The industry groups that employ the most of it (BLS, May 2025).
Where the most of these jobs are
The metro areas with the most people in it (BLS, May 2025).
Questions about this job
- How much of the work of Cutters and Trimmers, Hand is within reach of AI now?
- An estimated 5% of the working time is within reach of AI models now and 5% by the end of 2028, on METR's long-run pace at four in five. Within reach means a model could finish work that long at that reliability. It is not a forecast of jobs lost or of savings.
- Which tasks of Cutters and Trimmers, Hand come within reach first?
- Weighted by the time each takes, the tasks with the most within reach now (projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index) are: Read work orders to determine dimensions, cutting locations, and quantities to cut (100% of the task's time now).
- Which tasks of Cutters and Trimmers, Hand stay with people?
- Tasks that are people work or body work are not counted as within reach at any date. The largest: Cut, shape, and trim materials, such as textiles, food, glass, stone, and metal, using knives, scissors, and other hand tools, portable power tools, or bench-mounted tools; Unroll, lay out, attach, or mount materials or items on cutting tables or machines; and Mark cutting lines around patterns or templates, or follow layout points, using squares, rules, and straightedges, and chalk, pencils, or scribes. Together such tasks are about 95% of the working time.
- Do people already use AI for the work of Cutters and Trimmers, Hand?
- In the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled for May 2026, no reportable share went to this job's tasks. Anthropic's labor market measure puts the share of the job's tasks seen in real Claude use at work at 0%. These are measures of use, not of how much of the work AI could finish, and they cover Claude only.
- Can robots do the physical work of Cutters and Trimmers, Hand?
- Anthropic's robot exposure rating (September 2026) finds 96% of the working time is physical work, and that a robot has been shown doing most of the task, somewhere, for 96% of the working time, 8% in a structured facility. Its index is 1.04 of 3. One example: Zünd G3 digital cutter with ITI Initialization System for "adjust guides and stops to control depths and widths of cuts". A robot shown somewhere is not one in every workplace; this site's own estimates still count no physical work as within reach.
- How is this estimated?
- From the 18 tasks O*NET lists for the occupation, each with an estimated length checked against GDPval and a share of the working time, each classed as desk, people or body work, and METR's measurements of how long a task the best AI models can finish, carried forward to the date from the latest, Claude Mythos Preview (early) in April 2026. Data checked November 10, 2026.
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