{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/architects-except-landscape-and-naval/", "methodology": "https://cookedindex.com/methodology", "notice": "Verdicts are re-examined as evidence accumulates. Re-fetch before relying on this; the page above always carries the current score.", "scored_at": "2026-08-11", "model": "claude-opus-5", "occupation": { "title": "Architects, Except Landscape and Naval", "soc_code": "17-1011", "category": "Engineering", "us_employment": 106770, "median_annual_wage": 99280 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 61, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 11, "embodiment": 9, "liability_shield": 15, "trust_premium": 12, "judgment_accountability": 14 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Schematic massing, IBC egress and occupancy checks, sheet-set coordination in Revit, and outline specs are all being absorbed by generative and parametric tooling, but detailing an unbuilt wall assembly, RFI resolution during construction, and reconciling a client's program against a site's setbacks still require someone in the loop — a mixed 11, not a 6, because the non-automatable share is real work, not just sign-off.", "embodiment": "Site visits, punch lists, and observing whether the flashing was actually installed as detailed put you in unfinished buildings with hard hats several times a month, but the other four days a week are Revit, Bluebeam, and consultant calls — a 9, not a 15, because the field time is inspection rather than execution.", "liability_shield": "The registered architect's seal on construction documents is required by state practice acts before a permit issues, and that seal carries personal liability for egress, fire separations, and structural coordination through the statute of repose — an unlicensed person genuinely cannot substitute, which is why this sits at 15 rather than mid-range.", "trust_premium": "Owners select architects on portfolio and interviews and stay through multi-year projects and repeat commissions, but many commodity commissions — tenant fit-outs, developer prototypes, public RFQs scored on fee — are awarded on price and qualifications rather than a personal bond, keeping this at 12 instead of the high teens.", "judgment_accountability": "You decide the exit stair count, the fire rating strategy, and which of three code-compliant options the owner can actually afford, then defend those calls to a plans examiner and potentially a jury after a fire — high-stakes and ambiguous, but bounded by IBC, ADA, and consultant sign-offs rather than made from nothing, hence 14." }, "rationale": "The production layer of architecture — massing studies, rendering, sheet sets, zoning and code checks, specification writing, permit paperwork — is exactly where generative tools and parametric BIM automation are landing hardest, and that layer is where most billable hours of a median architect actually sit. What holds is the licensed stamp on construction documents, the personal liability for life-safety decisions, construction administration on active job sites, and the client and consultant negotiation that resolves conflicting budget, code, and program demands. Expect the same split seen in software: fewer people producing drawings, the same or fewer people signing them and owning the outcome.", "outlook": "By 2035 firms will produce documents with a fraction of today's drafting staff, and the surviving roles concentrate in licensed principals, code and life-safety specialists, and field-side construction administrators.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State licensing boards (via NCARB/AIA model language) adopting rules that AI-generated construction documents require a licensed architect's stamp plus a documented human review log, and that a licensed architect cannot delegate code-compliance determinations to software — analogous to engineering boards' existing 'responsible charge' rules. Professional liability insurers (e.g. Victor/AIA-endorsed programs) adding endorsements that void coverage absent named-architect review of automated output pushes the same direction.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Building codes and AHJ practice increasingly requiring performance-based alternate-means-and-methods submissions (already common in IBC Ch.1 alternate compliance and in mass-timber/tall-wood approvals), where a named architect argues life-safety equivalence before a board rather than checking prescriptive tables. Also expanded jurisdictional design-review and resilience/embodied-carbon boards putting contested discretionary calls on a signing human.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier job: if generative massing, sheet production, spec writing and permit paperwork are largely automated, the residual role is construction administration, RFI/change-order adjudication, consultant coordination and client program negotiation — tasks whose share of the day rises mechanically even with no capability change. Watch fee structures shifting from percentage-of-drawings toward CA-weighted and owner's-representative billing.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Contractual expansion of on-site duties: AIA B101 additional-services CA scopes, lender- or insurer-required site observation reports, and post-Surfside-style facade/structural inspection mandates (Florida SB 4-D milestone inspections, NYC LL 11) that name an architect or engineer for physical field verification and punch-list judgment.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 2 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Narrow route only: high-end residential, cultural, and institutional clients who buy an identified authorial designer. This is a small share of the 106,770 and does not scale to the median commercial/production architect; no realistic mechanism makes developer clients pay a premium for human-drawn documents.", "plausibility": "unlikely", "would_add": 1 } ], "ceiling_note": "The stamp protects the signature, not the headcount. Liability and accountability levers can hold the score for the architects who sign, while total employment falls — a firm can stamp far more square footage per licensed person than before. Ceiling realistically ~72-75." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 103110, "wage": 78470 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 104360, "wage": 79380 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 105850, "wage": 80750 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 103900, "wage": 82320 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 100400, "wage": 80180 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 107490, "wage": 82840 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 111170, "wage": 93310 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 111140, "wage": 96690 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 106770, "wage": 99280 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 3.5, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }