Dental Laboratory Technicians
In short: today's best AI models could do about 0% 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 100% of the time, stays with people.
Construct and repair full or partial dentures or dental appliances.
34,410 people do this job in the US. $49,610 a year.
A typical 40-hour week
Not yet reviewed task by task- AI could take on0 h
- A person checks AI's work0 h
- Desk work AI can't do yet0 h
- Stays with people40 h
Dental Laboratory Technicians, now: of a 40-hour week, AI could take on 0 hours, 0 hours become checking its work, 0 hours are desk work it can't do yet, and 40 hours stay with people.
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.
- 0%
- 0%
- 100%
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, 0%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 0%. Today's estimate: 0%.
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
Of the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled and tied to a work task, no reportable share went to this job's tasks in May 2026; 0 of its 17 tasks showed up. Within each of Anthropic's methods, never across a change: 0.0031% to none (released February and March 2025).
Each release
| Conversations | Share | Rank | Tasks seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Released February 2025 | 0.0031% | 651 of 708 | 1 of 17 |
| Released March 2025 | none | n/a | 0 of 17 |
| The week of Aug 4, 2025 (released September 2025) | none | n/a | 0 of 17 |
| The week of Nov 13, 2025 (released January 2026) | none | n/a | 0 of 17 |
| The week of Feb 5, 2026 (released March 2026) | none | n/a | 0 of 17 |
| April 2026 (released June 2026) | none | n/a | 0 of 17 |
| May 2026 (released June 2026) | none | n/a | 0 of 17 |
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 89% of this job's working time as physical work. For 78% of the working time, a robot has been shown doing most of the task somewhere: 78% in a purpose-built cell. 0.78 of 3, the 233rd highest of the 923 jobs.
- Not physical 11%
- No robot shown 11%
- In a purpose-built cell 78%
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 . 17 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fabricate, alter, or repair dental devices, such as dentures, crowns, bridges, inlays, or appliances for straightening teeth.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Glidewell Intelligent Manufacturing / BruxZir Factory robotic milling lines (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 29% | 3.3 h50 min to 1 work day | Stays with people | |
| Build and shape wax teeth, using small hand instruments and information from observations or dentists' specifications.Done hourly or more by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Ivoclar ProArt CAD Try-In discs milled on PM-series mills (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 11% | 1.3 h25 min to 2.5 h | Stays with people | |
| Apply porcelain paste or wax over prosthesis frameworks or setups, using brushes and spatulas.Done hourly or more by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Formlabs Digital Dentures (Denture Base Resin + Denture Teeth Resin on Form 3B) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 8% | 50 min17 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Rebuild or replace linings, wire sections, or missing teeth to repair dentures.Done daily by most who do it.Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 7% | 1.3 h25 min to 2.5 h | Stays with people | |
| Melt metals or mix plaster, porcelain, or acrylic pastes and pour materials into molds or over frameworks to form dental prostheses or apparatuses.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Formlabs Form Auto / Automation Ecosystem (Form 3+/Form 4 dental printers) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 6% | 38 min17 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Train or supervise other dental technicians or dental laboratory bench workers.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 5% | 50 min25 min to 2.5 h | Stays with people | |
| Test appliances for conformance to specifications and accuracy of occlusion, using articulators and micrometers.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Glidewell Intelligent Manufacturing (robotic milling towers + optical inspection) (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 25 min13 min to 42 min | Stays with people | |
| Read prescriptions or specifications and examine models or impressions to determine the design of dental products to be constructed.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 5% | 17 min8 min to 29 min | Stays with people | |
| Shape and solder wire and metal frames or bands for dental products, using soldering irons and hand tools.Done hourly or more by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, OG-DOS Bender MAX / Bender S ("Hawley Retainer Wire Bending Robot") (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 1.1 h17 min to 2.1 h | Stays with people | |
| Mold wax over denture setups to form the full contours of artificial gums.Done hourly or more by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Ivotion Denture System (Ivotion disc + PrograMill PM7 5-axis mill) (Ivoclar Vivadent) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 50 min17 min to 2.1 h | Stays with people | |
| Remove excess metal or porcelain and polish surfaces of prostheses or frameworks, using polishing machines.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Glidewell Intelligent Manufacturing / BruxZir Factory automation lines (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 25 min8 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Place tooth models on an apparatus that mimics bite and movement of patient's jaw to evaluate functionality of model.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 3% | 17 min8 min to 38 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.
- Medical Appliance Technicians3% now, 3% by 2028
- Dental Assistants13% now, 13% by 2028
- Ophthalmic Laboratory Technicians7% now, 7% by 2028
- Medical Equipment Repairers28% now, 33% by 2028
- Molders, Shapers, and Casters, Except Metal and Plastic0% now, 0% by 2028
- Calibration Technologists and Technicians37% now, 55% 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 Dental Laboratory Technicians is within reach of AI now?
- An estimated 0% of the working time is within reach of AI models now and 0% 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 Dental Laboratory Technicians come within reach first?
- No task has a meaningful share of its time within reach now or by the end of 2028, on the long-run pace at four in five: the work is mostly people work and body work, which the site does not count.
- Which tasks of Dental Laboratory Technicians stay with people?
- Tasks that are people work or body work are not counted as within reach at any date. The largest: Fabricate, alter, or repair dental devices, such as dentures, crowns, bridges, inlays, or appliances for straightening teeth; Build and shape wax teeth, using small hand instruments and information from observations or dentists' specifications; and Apply porcelain paste or wax over prosthesis frameworks or setups, using brushes and spatulas. Together such tasks are about 100% of the working time.
- Do people already use AI for the work of Dental Laboratory Technicians?
- 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 Dental Laboratory Technicians?
- Anthropic's robot exposure rating (September 2026) finds 89% of the working time is physical work, and that a robot has been shown doing most of the task, somewhere, for 78% of the working time. Its index is 0.78 of 3. One example: Glidewell Intelligent Manufacturing / BruxZir Factory robotic milling lines for "fabricate, alter, or repair dental devices, such as dentures, crowns, bridges, inlays, or appliances for straightening teeth". 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 17 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.
This job in your state or metro area
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