Postmasters and Mail Superintendents
In short: today's best AI models could do about 23% 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 77% of the time, stays with people.
Plan, direct, or coordinate operational, administrative, management, and support services of a U.S. post office; or coordinate activities of workers engaged in postal and related work in assigned post office.
13,810 people do this job in the US. $96,660 a year.
A typical 40-hour week
Not yet reviewed task by task- AI could take on9 h
- A person checks AI's work0 h
- Desk work AI can't do yet0 h
- Stays with people31 h
Postmasters and Mail Superintendents, now: of a 40-hour week, AI could take on 9 hours, 0 hours become checking its work, 0 hours are desk work it can't do yet, and 31 hours stay with people.
The largest pieces: Prepare and submit detailed and summary reports of post office activities to designated supervisors (about 4 h); Prepare employee work schedules (about 2 h); Monitor employees' work schedules and attendance for payroll purposes (about 1 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.
- 23%
- 42%
- 35%
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, 16%. Today's estimate: 23%.
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, 0.011% went to this job's tasks in May 2026, the 399th largest of the 447 jobs that showed up at all; 1 of its 13 tasks showed up. Within each of Anthropic's methods, never across a change: none to 0.016% (released February and March 2025); 0.0037% to 0.0016% (August 2025 to February 2026); 0.011% to 0.011% (April to May 2026).
Each release
| Conversations | Share | Rank | Tasks seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Released February 2025 | none | n/a | 0 of 13 |
| Released March 2025 | 0.016% | 455 of 703 | 1 of 13 |
| The week of Aug 4, 2025 (released September 2025) | 0.0037% | 564 of 655 | 1 of 13 |
| The week of Nov 13, 2025 (released January 2026) | none | n/a | 0 of 13 |
| The week of Feb 5, 2026 (released March 2026) | 0.0016% | 669 of 677 | 1 of 13 |
| April 2026 (released June 2026) | 0.011% | 383 of 434 | 1 of 13 |
| May 2026 (released June 2026) | 0.011% | 399 of 447 | 1 of 13 |
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 3% of this job's working time as physical work. For 3% of the working time, a robot has been shown doing most of the task somewhere: 3% in a structured facility. 0.07 of 3, the 554th highest of the 923 jobs.
- Not physical 97%
- In a structured facility 3%
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 . 13 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct and coordinate operational, management, and supportive services of one or a number of postal facilities.Done daily by most who do it. | 32% | 4.2 h1.7 h to 1 work day | Stays with people | |
| Organize and supervise activities, such as the processing of incoming and outgoing mail.Done daily by most who do it. | 26% | 2.5 h50 min to 6.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Prepare and submit detailed and summary reports of post office activities to designated supervisors.Done daily by most who do it. | 11% | 2.1 h50 min to 4.2 h | 100%Half by now | |
| Negotiate labor disputes.Done more than monthly by most who do it. | 9% | 4.2 h1.7 h to 1.3 work days | Stays with people | |
| Prepare employee work schedules.Done daily by most who do it. | 5% | 1.7 h50 min to 3.3 h | 100%Half by now | |
| Hire and train employees, and evaluate their performance.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 5% | 3.3 h1.3 h to 1 work day | Stays with people | |
| Monitor employees' work schedules and attendance for payroll purposes.Done daily by most who do it. | 3% | 25 min13 min to 50 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Select and train postmasters and managers of associate postal units.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 3% | 6.7 h1.7 h to 3.1 work days | Stays with people | |
| Resolve customer complaints.Done daily by most who do it. AI observed on this task. | 2% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Inform the public of available services, and of postal laws and regulations.Done daily by most who do it. | 0.7% | 17 min8 min to 50 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Confer with suppliers to obtain bids for proposed purchases and to requisition supplies, disbursing funds according to federal regulations.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 0.4% | 1.1 h25 min to 2.1 h | Stays with people | |
| Collect rents for post office boxes.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 0.2% | 13 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.
- Postal Service Clerks19% now, 19% by 2028
- Transportation, Storage, and Distribution Managers32% now, 68% by 2028
- First-Line Supervisors of Office and Administrative Support Workers54% now, 58% by 2028
- Administrative Services Managers52% now, 70% by 2028
- General and Operations Managers45% now, 53% by 2028
- Postal Service Mail Sorters, Processors, and Processing Machine Operators1% now, 1% 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 Postmasters and Mail Superintendents is within reach of AI now?
- An estimated 23% of the working time is within reach of AI models now and 23% 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 Postmasters and Mail Superintendents 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 and submit detailed and summary reports of post office activities to designated supervisors (100% of the task's time now); Prepare employee work schedules (100% of the task's time now); and Monitor employees' work schedules and attendance for payroll purposes (100% of the task's time now).
- Which tasks of Postmasters and Mail Superintendents stay with people?
- Tasks that are people work or body work are not counted as within reach at any date. The largest: Direct and coordinate operational, management, and supportive services of one or a number of postal facilities; Organize and supervise activities, such as the processing of incoming and outgoing mail; and Negotiate labor disputes. Together such tasks are about 77% of the working time.
- Do people already use AI for the work of Postmasters and Mail Superintendents?
- In the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled for May 2026 and tied to a work task, 0.011% went to this job's tasks, the 399th largest share of the 447 jobs that showed up; 1 of its 13 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 Postmasters and Mail Superintendents?
- Anthropic's robot exposure rating (September 2026) finds 3% of the working time is physical work, and that a robot has been shown doing most of the task, somewhere, for 3% of the working time, 3% in a structured facility. Its index is 0.07 of 3. One example: Personal Teller Machine (PTM) for "issue and cash money orders". 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 13 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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