Funeral Attendants
In short: today's best AI models could do about 20% 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 80% of the time, stays with people.
Perform a variety of tasks during funeral, such as placing casket in parlor or chapel prior to service, arranging floral offerings or lights around casket, directing or escorting mourners, closing casket, and issuing and storing funeral equipment.
31,090 people do this job in the US. $35,680 a year.
A typical 40-hour week
Not yet reviewed task by task- AI could take on8 h
- A person checks AI's work0 h
- Desk work AI can't do yet0 h
- Stays with people32 h
Funeral Attendants, now: of a 40-hour week, AI could take on 8 hours, 0 hours become checking its work, 0 hours are desk work it can't do yet, and 32 hours stay with people.
The largest pieces: Perform various administrative tasks, such as typing documents or answering telephone calls (about 3 h); Attend to the needs of the bereaved, such as by offering comfort, counseling, or after-care programs (about 2 h); Obtain doctors' signatures on death certificate and complete other paperwork, such as insurance claims forms (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.
- 20%
- 0%
- 80%
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, 1%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 19%. Today's estimate: 20%.
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, 0.021% went to this job's tasks in May 2026, the 312th largest of the 447 jobs that showed up at all; 2 of its 24 tasks showed up. Within each of Anthropic's methods, never across a change: 0.0066% to 0.0065% (released February and March 2025); 0.026% to 0.018% (August 2025 to February 2026); 0.023% to 0.021% (April to May 2026).
Each release
| Conversations | Share | Rank | Tasks seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Released February 2025 | 0.0066% | 579 of 708 | 1 of 24 |
| Released March 2025 | 0.0065% | 552 of 703 | 1 of 24 |
| The week of Aug 4, 2025 (released September 2025) | 0.026% | 338 of 655 | 2 of 24 |
| The week of Nov 13, 2025 (released January 2026) | 0.02% | 383 of 672 | 2 of 24 |
| The week of Feb 5, 2026 (released March 2026) | 0.018% | 410 of 677 | 2 of 24 |
| April 2026 (released June 2026) | 0.023% | 304 of 434 | 2 of 24 |
| May 2026 (released June 2026) | 0.021% | 312 of 447 | 2 of 24 |
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 75% of this job's working time as physical work. For 43% of the working time, a robot has been shown doing most of the task somewhere: 34% in a purpose-built cell, 9% in a structured facility. 0.52 of 3, the 302nd highest of the 923 jobs.
- Not physical 25%
- No robot shown 31%
- In a purpose-built cell 34%
- In a structured facility 9%
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 . 24 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Perform a variety of tasks during funerals to assist funeral directors and to ensure that services run smoothly and as planned.Done more than weekly by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 17% | 1.3 h25 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Embalm, dress, cosmeticize, and casket the deceased.Done more than weekly by most who do it.Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 14% | 3.3 h1.7 h to 6.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Perform general maintenance tasks for funeral homes, such as maintaining equipment or caring for funeral grounds.Done more than weekly by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Whiz (SoftBank Robotics / Brain Corp BrainOS) (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 7% | 1.7 h38 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Perform various administrative tasks, such as typing documents or answering telephone calls.Done daily by most who do it. AI observed on this task. | 7% | 25 min8 min to 50 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Clean and drive funeral vehicles, such as cars or hearses, in funeral processions.Done more than weekly by most who do it. Robots: in a structured facility, Waymo Driver (robotaxi) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 6% | 1.3 h25 min to 2.5 h | Stays with people | |
| Clean funeral parlors or chapels.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 6% | 50 min25 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Attend to the needs of the bereaved, such as by offering comfort, counseling, or after-care programs.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 4% | 50 min17 min to 1.7 h | 100%Half by now | |
| Obtain doctors' signatures on death certificate and complete other paperwork, such as insurance claims forms.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 4% | 50 min25 min to 2.5 h | 100%Half by now | |
| Assist with cremations and the processing and packaging of cremated remains.Done more than weekly by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Austeng Automated Charge Bier (with Joule Cremator) (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 1.7 h50 min to 3.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Supervise funeral processions and assist with cemetery parking.Done more than weekly by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 1.3 h25 min to 2.1 h | Stays with people | |
| Place caskets in parlors or chapels prior to wakes or funerals.Done more than weekly by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Crematec insertion machine / coffin handling system (Höganäs Borgestad) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 25 min17 min to 42 min | Stays with people | |
| Arrange floral offerings or lights around caskets.Done more than weekly by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, DERO FlowerCollector (DERO/FLC*100F) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 25 min13 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.
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 Funeral Attendants is within reach of AI now?
- An estimated 20% of the working time is within reach of AI models now and 20% 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 Funeral Attendants 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: Perform various administrative tasks, such as typing documents or answering telephone calls (100% of the task's time now); Attend to the needs of the bereaved, such as by offering comfort, counseling, or after-care programs (100% of the task's time now); and Obtain doctors' signatures on death certificate and complete other paperwork, such as insurance claims forms (100% of the task's time now).
- Which tasks of Funeral Attendants stay with people?
- Tasks that are people work or body work are not counted as within reach at any date. The largest: Perform a variety of tasks during funerals to assist funeral directors and to ensure that services run smoothly and as planned; Embalm, dress, cosmeticize, and casket the deceased; and Perform general maintenance tasks for funeral homes, such as maintaining equipment or caring for funeral grounds. Together such tasks are about 80% of the working time.
- Do people already use AI for the work of Funeral Attendants?
- In the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled for May 2026 and tied to a work task, 0.021% went to this job's tasks, the 312th largest share of the 447 jobs that showed up; 2 of its 24 tasks appeared. 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 Funeral Attendants?
- Anthropic's robot exposure rating (September 2026) finds 75% of the working time is physical work, and that a robot has been shown doing most of the task, somewhere, for 43% of the working time, 9% in a structured facility. Its index is 0.52 of 3. One example: Waymo Driver (robotaxi) for "clean and drive funeral vehicles, such as cars or hearses, in funeral processions". 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 24 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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