Pressers, Textile, Garment, and Related Materials
In short: today's best AI models could do about 2% 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 98% of the time, stays with people.
Press or shape articles by hand or machine.
26,120 people do this job in the US. $35,060 a year.
A typical 40-hour week
Not yet reviewed task by task- AI could take on1 h
- A person checks AI's work0 h
- Desk work AI can't do yet0 h
- Stays with people39 h
Pressers, Textile, Garment, and Related Materials, now: of a 40-hour week, AI could take on 1 hours, 0 hours become checking its work, 0 hours are desk work it can't do yet, and 39 hours stay with people.
The largest pieces: Select appropriate pressing machines, based on garment properties such as heat tolerance (under an hour).
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.
- 2%
- 0%
- 98%
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, 2%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 2%. Today's estimate: 2%.
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 28 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 99% of this job's working time as physical work. For 82% of the working time, a robot has been shown doing most of the task somewhere: 74% in a purpose-built cell, 8% in a structured facility. 0.90 of 3, the 176th highest of the 923 jobs.
- Not physical 1%
- No robot shown 16%
- In a purpose-built cell 74%
- 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 . 28 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Finish fancy garments such as evening gowns and costumes, using hand irons to produce high quality finishes.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 12% | 33 min13 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Finish pants, jackets, shirts, skirts and other dry-cleaned and laundered articles, using hand irons.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Presso EcoRobo garment care machine (StretchAI robotic tensioning) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 9% | 13 min4 min to 29 min | Stays with people | |
| Shrink, stretch, or block articles by hand to conform to original measurements, using forms, blocks, and steam.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, PONY FORMPLUS / FORMPLUS-S tensioning form finisher (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 8% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Operate steam, hydraulic, or other pressing machines to remove wrinkles from garments and flatwork items, or to shape, form, or patch articles.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Sankosha LP-590U Single Buck Shirt Press (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 6% | 7 min3 min to 17 min | Stays with people | |
| Finish pleated garments, determining sizes of pleats from evidence of old pleats or from work orders, using machine presses or hand irons.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 6% | 10 min4 min to 25 min | Stays with people | |
| Select, install, and adjust machine components, including pressing forms, rollers, and guides, using hoists and hand tools.Done daily by most who do it.Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Bystronic Xpert Pro Modular Tool Changer / integrated tool changer (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 38 min17 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Finish velvet garments by steaming them on bucks of hot-head presses or steam tables, and brushing pile (nap) with handbrushes.Done several times a day by most who do it.Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 17 min7 min to 42 min | Stays with people | |
| Block or shape knitted garments after cleaning.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, MACPI 314.40 form finisher for knitted garments (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 17 min7 min to 42 min | Stays with people | |
| Clean and maintain pressing machines, using cleaning solutions and lubricants.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Cold Jet automated/robotic dry ice blasting cells (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 21 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Slide material back and forth over heated, metal, ball-shaped forms to smooth and press portions of garments that cannot be satisfactorily pressed with flat pressers or hand irons.Done several times a day by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Macpi 234 shoulder, sleeve and armhole pressing unit (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 7 min3 min to 17 min | Stays with people | |
| Push and pull irons over surfaces of articles to smooth or shape them.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, Fimas 296 / 298 pressed shirt units (and Fimas 387 collar-cuff press) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 4% | 5 min2 min to 13 min | Stays with people | |
| Identify and treat spots on garments.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 3% | 7 min3 min to 17 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.
- Sewing Machine Operators2% now, 2% by 2028
- Laundry and Dry-Cleaning Workers1% now, 1% by 2028
- Shoe Machine Operators and Tenders6% now, 6% by 2028
- Paper Goods Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders0% now, 0% by 2028
- Machine Feeders and Offbearers5% now, 5% by 2028
- Cutters and Trimmers, Hand5% now, 5% 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 Pressers, Textile, Garment, and Related Materials is within reach of AI now?
- An estimated 2% of the working time is within reach of AI models now and 2% 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 Pressers, Textile, Garment, and Related Materials 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: Select appropriate pressing machines, based on garment properties such as heat tolerance (100% of the task's time now).
- Which tasks of Pressers, Textile, Garment, and Related Materials stay with people?
- Tasks that are people work or body work are not counted as within reach at any date. The largest: Finish fancy garments such as evening gowns and costumes, using hand irons to produce high quality finishes; Finish pants, jackets, shirts, skirts and other dry-cleaned and laundered articles, using hand irons; and Shrink, stretch, or block articles by hand to conform to original measurements, using forms, blocks, and steam. Together such tasks are about 98% of the working time.
- Do people already use AI for the work of Pressers, Textile, Garment, and Related Materials?
- 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 Pressers, Textile, Garment, and Related Materials?
- Anthropic's robot exposure rating (September 2026) finds 99% of the working time is physical work, and that a robot has been shown doing most of the task, somewhere, for 82% of the working time, 8% in a structured facility. Its index is 0.90 of 3. One example: Sankosha ST-9200E press-free finisher / MF-300E multi-garment finisher for "activate and adjust machine controls to regulate temperature and pressure of rollers, ironing shoes, or plates, according to specifications". 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 28 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
Embed these figures on your site
A small card with the share of working time within reach now and at the end of 2027, 2028 and 2030, the date and a link back. Free under CC BY 4.0; the card carries the credit.
Your own version of this job
The page above is the occupation. Your job is your title and what you actually do: give both, and they are read against these tasks in your browser, nothing sent anywhere. The headline is free: how much of your working time is within reach now and by the end of 2028, and how many of the tasks your description names.
This occupation has not been reviewed task by task yet, so the full personal report is not offered for it; 402 of 923 occupations are reviewed so far, largest first.