{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/security-guards/", "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": "Security Guards", "soc_code": "33-9032", "category": "Protective Service", "us_employment": 1283470, "median_annual_wage": 38020 }, "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 53, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 12, "embodiment": 17, "liability_shield": 7, "trust_premium": 9, "judgment_accountability": 8 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "A 12 reflects the split within one job description: foot patrols of stairwells, unlocking doors for a locked-out tenant, escorting a hostile ex-employee off the floor, and standing a fixed post at a hospital ED all still need a body, but the console shift — scanning 40 camera feeds, logging badge-ins, writing the shift report from a template — is exactly what video analytics and automated access control already do, and that's often half or more of the paid hours at a large site.", "embodiment": "A 17 is because the work happens in parking garages at 2 a.m., on construction sites in rain, in warehouse yards with uneven ground and trucks moving, and in crowds where you may physically block, restrain, or wrestle with someone who does not want to be moved — nothing about that is a controlled environment, and the only reason it isn't higher is that a meaningful share of guards spend their shift seated at a lobby desk.", "liability_shield": "A 7 fits the reality that most states require a guard card or registration (California BSIS, New York's 8-hour pre-assignment, Florida Class D) with fingerprinting and a background check, which is a real gate an algorithm can't pass — but it's a weeks-long licence, not a professional one, and when a guard uses excessive force or misses an incident the negligent-security suit lands on the contract firm and the property owner, not on the guard's personal licence.", "trust_premium": "A 9 recognises that guards who work the same lobby for years know which employees belong, which delivery drivers to wave through, and which tenant is going through a bad divorce — that familiarity is genuinely valuable to a client — but guards are billed hourly by a contract firm, rotated between sites, and swapped out at contract renewal without any customer objecting, so the relationship is not what's being purchased.", "judgment_accountability": "An 8 is set by post orders: guards operate on written observe-and-report instructions with explicit escalation to police or a supervisor, and most decisions are procedural — yet the calls that matter (is this person a threat or just agitated, do I intervene in a fight or hold the door, do I evacuate now) are made alone in seconds with no one to consult, which is why this sits above the procedural band rather than in it." }, "rationale": "The core of the job — being physically present, walking a site, checking doors, and responding when something is wrong — is not automatable with today's robotics, and that keeps guards employed. But the single largest slice of guard hours is camera monitoring and access logging, and AI video analytics already flags intruders, loitering, weapons, and left-behind objects better than a human on hour six of a night shift. Expect the occupation to persist in headcount but shift away from monitor-watching posts toward mobile patrol, incident response, and customer-facing lobby roles, with each remaining guard covering more square footage.", "outlook": "Headcount holds roughly flat over ten years, but monitoring-only jobs thin out as analytics take the screens, and pay concentrates in armed, patrol, and emergency-response posts.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "State licensing boards (e.g., California BSIS, New York DOS Division of Licensing) requiring that any AI-generated alarm verification or trespass determination used as the basis for a police dispatch be confirmed and logged by a licensed guard — mirroring existing state 'alarm verification' statutes that already require human confirmation before police response to reduce false alarms. Extension of those verification mandates from alarm companies to video analytics would put a licensed name on each dispatch.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Insurer requirements: property and casualty carriers conditioning premises-liability coverage (or negligent-security defense) on documented licensed-guard presence and human sign-off on incident reports, as some carriers already do for armed posts and hospital/school contracts.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Use-of-force and detention decisions concentrating in fewer remaining posts as monitoring is automated: the guard who executes a citizen's arrest, escorts an involuntary discharge, or de-escalates an armed subject owns a call no vendor will indemnify. Healthcare and school-security contracts increasingly specify certified de-escalation (CPI, IAHSS) as a condition of the post.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Genuine two-tier structure: if camera-watching hours are absorbed by analytics, the residual role is patrol, response, and ambiguous-encounter handling, which is not the same job measured against current benchmarks. Watch for post orders that eliminate the console seat and consolidate hours into mobile response.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "trust_premium", "change": "Buyer segments that explicitly purchase visible human presence: luxury retail, houses of worship after threat incidents, hospital EDs, and union-negotiated staffing floors (SEIU Local 32BJ contracts specify minimum staffed posts in NYC commercial buildings). Expansion of such contract floors, or municipal ordinances requiring staffed lobbies in large residential buildings, would raise this.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 } ], "ceiling_note": "Most of these protect a smaller number of posts rather than aggregate headcount; the console-monitoring tier has no lever and its erosion is not reversible by any of the above. Trust premium is real only in specific high-consequence or high-luxury segments, not in the low-bid contract-guard market that employs the majority." }, "adjudication": null, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 1105440, "wage": 26900 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 1114380, "wage": 28490 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 1126370, "wage": 29680 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 1054400, "wage": 31050 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 1057100, "wage": 31470 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 1124890, "wage": 34750 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 1202940, "wage": 37070 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 1241770, "wage": 38370 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 1283470, "wage": 38020 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": 16.1, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "flight-attendants", "title": "Flight Attendants", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 73, "median_wage": 63580, "overlap": 63, "skills_to_close": [ "Service Orientation", "Speaking", "Social Perceptiveness", "Instructing" ] }, { "slug": "transit-and-railroad-police", "title": "Transit and Railroad Police", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 73, "median_wage": 90230, "overlap": 52, "skills_to_close": [ "Complex Problem Solving", "Systems Analysis", "Critical Thinking", "Management of Personnel Resources" ] }, { "slug": "police-and-sheriff-s-patrol-officers", "title": "Police and Sheriff's Patrol Officers", "verdict": "SAFE", "risk_resistance": 82, "median_wage": 76210, "overlap": 51, "skills_to_close": [ "Social Perceptiveness", "Critical Thinking", "Reading Comprehension", "Speaking" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }