Pharmacy Aides
In short: today's best AI models could do about 47% 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 53% of the time, stays with people.
Record drugs delivered to the pharmacy, store incoming merchandise, and inform the supervisor of stock needs. May operate cash register and accept prescriptions for filling.
39,530 people do this job in the US. $37,680 a year.
A typical 40-hour week
Not yet reviewed task by task- AI could take on19 h
- A person checks AI's work0 h
- Desk work AI can't do yet0 h
- Stays with people21 h
Pharmacy Aides, now: of a 40-hour week, AI could take on 19 hours, 0 hours become checking its work, 0 hours are desk work it can't do yet, and 21 hours stay with people.
The largest pieces: Prepare, maintain, and record records of inventories, receipts, purchases, or deliveries, using a variety of computer screen formats (about 4 h); Perform clerical tasks, such as filing, compiling and maintaining prescription records, or composing letters (about 4 h); Process medical insurance claims, posting bill amounts and calculating copayments (about 4 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.
- 47%
- 0%
- 53%
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, 13%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 45%. Today's estimate: 47%.
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: 0.022% to 0.022% (released February and March 2025); 0.056% to 0.063% (August 2025 to February 2026).
Each release
| Conversations | Share | Rank | Tasks seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Released February 2025 | 0.022% | 436 of 708 | 2 of 17 |
| Released March 2025 | 0.022% | 404 of 703 | 3 of 17 |
| The week of Aug 4, 2025 (released September 2025) | 0.056% | 228 of 655 | 3 of 17 |
| The week of Nov 13, 2025 (released January 2026) | 0.062% | 217 of 672 | 3 of 17 |
| The week of Feb 5, 2026 (released March 2026) | 0.063% | 223 of 677 | 3 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 49% of this job's working time as physical work. For 49% of the working time, a robot has been shown doing most of the task somewhere: 30% in a purpose-built cell, 19% in a structured facility. 0.68 of 3, the 263rd highest of the 923 jobs.
- Not physical 51%
- In a purpose-built cell 30%
- In a structured facility 19%
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 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Receive, store, and inventory pharmaceutical supplies or medications, check for out-of-date medications, and notify pharmacist when inventory levels are low.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, BD Rowa Vmax / BD Rowa EasyLoad automated pharmacy storage and retrieval system (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 12% | 38 min13 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Prepare, maintain, and record records of inventories, receipts, purchases, or deliveries, using a variety of computer screen formats.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 11% | 25 min8 min to 1.3 h | 100%Half by now | |
| Unpack, sort, count, and label incoming merchandise, including items requiring special handling or refrigeration.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, BD Rowa EasyLoad (with Rowa Smart / Vmax storage robots) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 9% | 29 min13 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Perform clerical tasks, such as filing, compiling and maintaining prescription records, or composing letters.Done daily by most who do it. AI observed on this task. | 9% | 25 min8 min to 1.3 h | 100%Half by now | |
| Process medical insurance claims, posting bill amounts and calculating copayments.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 9% | 13 min4 min to 29 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Compound, package, and label pharmaceutical products, under direction of pharmacist.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: in a structured facility, Parata Max 2 (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 7% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Deliver medication to treatment areas, living units, residences, or clinics, using various means of transportation.Done more than weekly by most who do it. Robots: in a structured facility, Moxi (Diligent Robotics) (deployed). Anthropic's rating. | 6% | 29 min13 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Maintain and clean equipment, work areas, or shelves.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, RTO-2000 parts washer integrated in a robotic work cell (Better Engineering) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 6% | 17 min8 min to 38 min | Stays with people | |
| Restock storage areas, replenishing items on shelves.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, BD Rowa Vmax / BD Rowa EasyLoad (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 6% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Accept prescriptions for filling, gathering and processing necessary information.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 4% | 8 min4 min to 21 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Answer telephone inquiries, referring callers to pharmacist when necessary.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 4% | 6 min3 min to 13 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Calculate anticipated drug usage for a prescribed period.Done hourly or more by most who do it. | 4% | 10 min4 min to 25 min | 100%Half by now |
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 Pharmacy Aides is within reach of AI now?
- An estimated 47% of the working time is within reach of AI models now and 47% 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 Pharmacy Aides 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: Prepare, maintain, and record records of inventories, receipts, purchases, or deliveries, using a variety of computer screen formats (100% of the task's time now); Perform clerical tasks, such as filing, compiling and maintaining prescription records, or composing letters (100% of the task's time now); and Process medical insurance claims, posting bill amounts and calculating copayments (100% of the task's time now).
- Which tasks of Pharmacy Aides stay with people?
- Tasks that are people work or body work are not counted as within reach at any date. The largest: Receive, store, and inventory pharmaceutical supplies or medications, check for out-of-date medications, and notify pharmacist when inventory levels are low; Unpack, sort, count, and label incoming merchandise, including items requiring special handling or refrigeration; and Compound, package, and label pharmaceutical products, under direction of pharmacist. Together such tasks are about 53% of the working time.
- Do people already use AI for the work of Pharmacy Aides?
- 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 2%. 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 Pharmacy Aides?
- Anthropic's robot exposure rating (September 2026) finds 49% of the working time is physical work, and that a robot has been shown doing most of the task, somewhere, for 49% of the working time, 19% in a structured facility. Its index is 0.68 of 3. One example: Parata Max 2 for "compound, package, and label pharmaceutical products, under direction of pharmacist". 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.
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