← Risk register SOC 43-6014 · reviewed 2026-08-11

Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive

1,706,790 US workers · median $47,540/yr · Office

COOKED

The core of this job — scheduling meetings, drafting and formatting correspondence, transcribing notes, maintaining filing systems, screening and routing calls and email, entering data into spreadsheets and CRMs — is precisely what current AI assistants and calendar/workflow automation already do at usable quality. What resists is the physical, in-office layer: receiving visitors and deliveries, handling paper and equipment, walking a document to a person, holding the informal knowledge of how a particular office actually runs. No licensure, no signature requirement, and buyers are not paying for a relationship with the admin, so the only real moat is on-site presence and office-specific judgment.

10-year outlook: Expect continued steady shrinkage of headcount through the 2030s as AI absorbs the correspondence, scheduling, and data-entry core, with surviving roles consolidating into fewer, broader office-operations and coordination jobs that require being physically present.

Score — 22/100 resistance

Five dimensions, 0–20 each, summed. Higher means more protected. The arithmetic is shown so you can check it: 4 + 6 + 0 + 7 + 5 = 22.

Task resistance 4/20

Core tasks are already automatable. Calendar coordination, email triage, meeting-minute transcription, mail merges, travel booking, expense-report entry and spreadsheet upkeep are each already shipped features in Outlook/Google Workspace plus an LLM, which puts this at 4 rather than 10 — the resistant residue is errand-running and improvisation when the printer jams, not any of the named duties.

Embodiment 6/20

Some physical or field component. A 6 reflects that the physical work is real but indoor and low-variance: greeting visitors, signing for couriers, restocking supply cabinets, badging in guests, wrestling the copier and moving paper files — controlled office floor, no ladders, weather, or patient contact, so nowhere near the 13+ band.

Liability shield 0/20

No licence, no signature requirement. There is no credential gate at all: no state licence, no mandatory certification, and the CAP/MOS credentials are resume decoration rather than a legal precondition — memos and calendar invites carry the boss's authority, and errors are absorbed by the supervisor, so 0 is literal, not a slight.

Trust premium 7/20

Some relationship component. 7 credits the accumulated office-specific relationships — knowing which VP will actually take a call, which vendor to chase, how a department's approval chain really works — but the position is filled through temp agencies and turned over without clients noticing, so the relationship is convenience, not the product being bought.

Judgment & accountability 5/20

Executes defined procedures on defined inputs. Most decisions run on standing rules — whose calendar wins a conflict, which template to use, what gets escalated — and the genuine discretion (choosing not to interrupt, resolving a double-booking, deciding a caller matters) is real-time and reversible within the day, which is a 5 rather than the 10+ of someone owning irreversible commitments.

Confidence: high · reviewed 2026-08-11 · how scoring works

Tasks already automatable

What survives

Active moats: physical-presence

How to future-proof this job

Training paths for your skill gaps: Systems analysis & design partner link · Structured problem solving partner link

Escape hatches — adjacent fields with better verdicts

Computed from U.S. Dept. of Labor O*NET skill profiles: high overlap with what you already do, materially higher resistance score.

Private Detectives and Investigators EXPOSED · 56/100 · you already have ~62% of the skill profile

Skills to close: Critical Thinking, Systems Analysis, Complex Problem Solving, Operation and Control

Field report — do you do this job?

Has AI actually changed your work?

Self-reported and unverified — a sentiment signal, not a survey. One response per person per occupation; you can change your answer.

From people who do this job

Nobody has filed one yet. If you do this work, you know things the rubric can't see.

What has actually changed in your work?

Concrete beats general: a tool that arrived, a task that moved, a headcount decision you watched happen. Don't include anything that identifies you or your employer if that would put you at risk.