{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/landscape-architects/", "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": "Landscape Architects", "soc_code": "17-1012", "category": "Engineering", "us_employment": 19600, "median_annual_wage": 79870 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 53, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 9, "embodiment": 9, "liability_shield": 13, "trust_premium": 10, "judgment_accountability": 12 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Generative layout tools already produce credible planting palettes, grading iterations, and stormwater volume checks from a site survey, and the hours you actually bill — CAD sheet sets, plant schedules, irrigation details, LEED/SITES documentation, municipal code cross-checks — are the most tokenizable parts of the practice, which is why this sits at 9 rather than mid-teens: what resists is not the drawing but the walking, the punch list, and the planning-commission hearing.", "embodiment": "You are on site for topographic verification, soil percolation checks, tree protection zones, and construction observation walks where the contractor set the swale two feet off — real boots-in-mud work, but it is intermittent visits to a site someone else is building, not the daily uncontrolled-environment exposure of the crews you inspect, which is what separates a 9 from a 15.", "liability_shield": "Roughly 49 states license landscape architects under practice or title acts, and your seal on grading and drainage sheets makes you personally answerable when a retention basin fails or an accessible route exceeds 5% running slope — the 13 rather than 18 reflects that much of the profession's work (master planning, design concepts, planting design) is legally sealable by architects and civil engineers too, so the statutory monopoly is narrower than a PE's or surveyor's.", "trust_premium": "Repeat institutional clients — a university facilities office, a municipal parks department, a developer who liked how you handled the last neighborhood meeting — hire you by name and reputation, but the deliverable is a stamped set of documents that a successor firm could produce, and most public work still comes through RFQ scoring rather than relationship, which puts this at 10 and not 15.", "judgment_accountability": "You make calls no code answers: whether a mature oak can survive the proposed cut, how much slope to accept before it becomes a maintenance liability, which stormwater approach will actually pass the reviewing engineer — genuine discretion with consequences years out, held at 12 because the governing constraints (zoning setbacks, ADA, local stormwater ordinances, plant hardiness) are written down and reviewed by others before anything is built." }, "rationale": "The production core of this job — CAD site plans, planting schedules, grading and drainage layouts, rendering, spec writing, zoning and code research — is exactly the text-and-screen work generative design tools are eating fastest, and junior drafting hours are the first to go. What holds is licensure: most states require a licensed landscape architect to seal construction documents, and that seal carries personal liability for stormwater, ADA circulation, and slope stability failures. Site walks, construction observation, contractor coordination, and public-meeting advocacy in front of hostile neighbors are also not automating; the modal worker survives by moving up into that tier rather than out of the profession.", "outlook": "Firms will produce the same volume of plans with fewer drafting hours, so employment stays flat or dips while the licensed, stamp-and-site-visit tier keeps its billing power.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Landscape architect seal requirements strengthened rather than eroded: CLARB/ASLA-backed practice acts closing the 'title act only' gap in states like Illinois and Massachusetts, plus explicit state rules that stormwater/green-infrastructure permit submittals (e.g., MS4 post-construction plans, state SWPPP sign-off) require a sealed LA or PE stamp on the planting/bioretention design. Watch also for board rules stating AI-generated construction documents do not satisfy 'responsible charge' and must be independently reviewed by the sealing licensee — the same language boards of architecture and engineering (e.g., NCARB, NCEES model rules) are now drafting.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Municipal codes that make the LA the accountable party for performance outcomes rather than drawing compliance — tree canopy ordinances with survivability bonds, Chesapeake Bay / Washington State stormwater manuals requiring certified designer sign-off on infiltration assumptions, or wildfire defensible-space and slope-stability review roles in California WUI zones where the LA owns the ambiguous call on soils and vegetation risk.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift: this occupation genuinely has two tiers. If generative tools absorb base plans, planting schedules, quantity takeoffs and rendering, the residual day becomes site walks, construction observation and punch lists, contractor RFIs, agency negotiation, and public hearings before hostile neighbors — work current models cannot do. The score rises only as measured against the remaining job, not because AI got worse.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Contract language — AIA/ASLA standard agreements or public owner requirements — mandating minimum on-site construction observation visits and licensee-signed field reports for planting establishment, subgrade, and drainage inspection, rather than photo-based remote review. Some state DOT and park agency contracts already specify visit counts.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 2 } ], "ceiling_note": "Trust premium is the honest omission: clients buy landscape architecture through developers, agencies, and prime architects on fee and schedule, and there is no visible market segment paying extra specifically for a human-drawn site plan. Also, the levers above mostly protect the licensed, senior tier; nothing plausible restores junior drafting hours, which is where the headcount is." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 19040, "wage": 65760 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 18660, "wage": 68230 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 20280, "wage": 69360 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 20730, "wage": 70630 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 17430, "wage": 67950 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 18120, "wage": 73210 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 20370, "wage": 79320 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 19580, "wage": 79660 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 19600, "wage": 79870 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 2.9, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "civil-engineers", "title": "Civil Engineers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 63, "median_wage": 100840, "overlap": 79, "skills_to_close": [ "Technology Design", "Mathematics", "Systems Analysis", "Science" ] }, { "slug": "chief-executives", "title": "Chief Executives", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 69, "median_wage": 213990, "overlap": 72, "skills_to_close": [ "Systems Evaluation", "Systems Analysis", "Persuasion", "Monitoring" ] }, { "slug": "construction-managers", "title": "Construction Managers", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 65, "median_wage": 114990, "overlap": 69, "skills_to_close": [ "Management of Personnel Resources", "Monitoring", "Negotiation", "Operations Monitoring" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }