Psychiatric Aides
In short: today's best AI models could do about 17% 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 84% of the time, stays with people.
Assist mentally impaired or emotionally disturbed patients, working under direction of nursing and medical staff. May assist with daily living activities, lead patients in educational and recreational activities, or accompany patients to and from examinations and treatments. May restrain violent patients. Includes psychiatric orderlies.
35,520 people do this job in the US. $44,910 a year.
A typical 40-hour week
Not yet reviewed task by task- AI could take on7 h
- A person checks AI's work0 h
- Desk work AI can't do yet0 h
- Stays with people33 h
Psychiatric Aides, now: of a 40-hour week, AI could take on 7 hours, 0 hours become checking its work, 0 hours are desk work it can't do yet, and 33 hours stay with people.
The largest pieces: Work as part of a team that may include psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, or social workers (about 3 h); Complete administrative tasks, such as entering orders into computer, answering telephone calls, or maintaining medical or facility information (about 2 h); Record and maintain patient information, such as vital signs, eating habits, behavior, progress notes, treatments, or discharge plans (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.
- 17%
- 0%
- 84%
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, 16%. Today's estimate: 17%.
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: none to 0.0039% (released February and March 2025); 0.014% to 0.0076% (August 2025 to February 2026).
Each release
| Conversations | Share | Rank | Tasks seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Released February 2025 | none | n/a | 0 of 17 |
| Released March 2025 | 0.0039% | 603 of 703 | 2 of 17 |
| The week of Aug 4, 2025 (released September 2025) | 0.014% | 414 of 655 | 1 of 17 |
| The week of Nov 13, 2025 (released January 2026) | 0.0062% | 547 of 672 | 1 of 17 |
| The week of Feb 5, 2026 (released March 2026) | 0.0076% | 531 of 677 | 1 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 55% of this job's working time as physical work. For 9% of the working time, a robot has been shown doing most of the task somewhere: 9% in a purpose-built cell. 0.09 of 3, the 527th highest of the 923 jobs.
- Not physical 45%
- No robot shown 46%
- In a purpose-built cell 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 . 17 tasks from .
| Task | Kind | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Provide patients with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities with routine physical, emotional, psychological, or rehabilitation care under the direction of nursing or medical staff.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 12% | 38 min17 min to 1.3 h | Stays with people | |
| Organize, supervise, or encourage patient participation in social, educational, or recreational activities.Done daily by most who do it. | 12% | 50 min25 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Complete physical checks and monitor patients to detect unusual or harmful behavior and report observations to professional staff.Done hourly or more by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 11% | 25 min13 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Maintain patients' restrictions to assigned areas.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 8% | 25 min8 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Work as part of a team that may include psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, or social workers.Done daily by most who do it. | 7% | 25 min13 min to 50 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Participate in recreational activities with patients, including card games, sports, or television viewing.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. Anthropic's rating. | 7% | 50 min25 min to 1.7 h | Stays with people | |
| Listen and provide emotional support and encouragement to psychiatric patients.Done several times a day by most who do it. | 6% | 17 min8 min to 38 min | Stays with people | |
| Serve meals or feed patients needing assistance or persuasion.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: in a purpose-built cell, RoboEatz Autonomous Robotic Kitchen (ARK) (sold). Anthropic's rating. | 5% | 33 min17 min to 1.1 h | Stays with people | |
| Complete administrative tasks, such as entering orders into computer, answering telephone calls, or maintaining medical or facility information.Done daily by most who do it. | 5% | 25 min8 min to 50 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Record and maintain patient information, such as vital signs, eating habits, behavior, progress notes, treatments, or discharge plans.Done daily by most who do it. | 4% | 17 min8 min to 33 min | 100%Half by now | |
| Aid patients in becoming accustomed to hospital routines.Done daily by most who do it. | 4% | 25 min13 min to 50 min | Stays with people | |
| Provide patients with assistance in bathing, dressing, or grooming, demonstrating these skills as necessary.Done daily by most who do it. Robots: no robot shown. 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).
- Psychiatric and Substance Abuse Hospitals14,190 people
- State Government, excluding Schools and Hospitals6,260 people
- General Medical and Surgical Hospitals4,050 people
- Residential Intellectual and Developmental Disability, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse Facilities3,780 people
- Offices of Other Health Practitioners1,320 people
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 Psychiatric Aides is within reach of AI now?
- An estimated 17% of the working time is within reach of AI models now and 17% 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 Psychiatric 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: Work as part of a team that may include psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, or social workers (100% of the task's time now); Complete administrative tasks, such as entering orders into computer, answering telephone calls, or maintaining medical or facility information (100% of the task's time now); and Record and maintain patient information, such as vital signs, eating habits, behavior, progress notes, treatments, or discharge plans (100% of the task's time now).
- Which tasks of Psychiatric Aides stay with people?
- Tasks that are people work or body work are not counted as within reach at any date. The largest: Provide patients with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities with routine physical, emotional, psychological, or rehabilitation care under the direction of nursing or medical staff; Organize, supervise, or encourage patient participation in social, educational, or recreational activities; and Complete physical checks and monitor patients to detect unusual or harmful behavior and report observations to professional staff. Together such tasks are about 84% of the working time.
- Do people already use AI for the work of Psychiatric 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 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 Psychiatric Aides?
- Anthropic's robot exposure rating (September 2026) finds 55% of the working time is physical work, and that a robot has been shown doing most of the task, somewhere, for 9% of the working time. Its index is 0.09 of 3. One example: RoboEatz Autonomous Robotic Kitchen (ARK) for "serve meals or feed patients needing assistance or persuasion". 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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