{ "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register", "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/tellers/", "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": "Tellers", "soc_code": "43-3071", "category": "Office", "us_employment": 329480, "median_annual_wage": 43030 }, "verdict": "COOKED", "risk_resistance": 23, "contested": false, "near_boundary": false, "dimensions": { "task_resistance": 5, "embodiment": 7, "liability_shield": 1, "trust_premium": 7, "judgment_accountability": 3 }, "reasoning": { "task_resistance": "Deposit acceptance, check cashing, balance inquiries, and drawer-balancing are already executed end-to-end by ATMs, remote deposit capture, and interactive teller machines — the 5 rather than 0 reflects only cash recycling exceptions, coin and currency straps, and safe-deposit box access that still route through a person.", "embodiment": "You physically count and strap currency, load and clear the cash recycler, escort customers to safe deposit boxes, and handle night-drop bags — but all of it happens inside a climate-controlled branch behind a counter, which is why this is a 7 and not the 13+ of field work.", "liability_shield": "No licence or certification gates the teller window; BSA/AML training and the CTR/SAR filing you initiate are institutional obligations that the bank and its compliance officer answer for, and the FDIC examines the bank, not you.", "trust_premium": "Regulars who ask for you by name, know your kids, and won't use the ATM are real value, but the bank routes them to whoever is open, transfers you between branches, and treats you as interchangeable at the teller line — relationship revenue lives with the personal banker and branch manager, not the 7 here.", "judgment_accountability": "Your discretion caps out at hold decisions within a posted schedule, override thresholds you must escalate above, and flagging a structuring pattern to compliance — the dollar limits, ID requirements, and referral scripts are written down before you arrive." }, "rationale": "The teller's core loop — accepting deposits, cashing checks, verifying identity, balancing a cash drawer, answering balance and fee questions — has been under attack by ATMs, deposit-capture apps, and chat agents for two decades, and generative AI finishes the job on the conversational and paperwork side. What remains is physical cash and coin handling in a branch plus the in-person reassurance older and small-business customers pay for, which is real but supports far fewer positions per branch. Modal work is procedural with no licensure and little discretion; branch consolidation, not sudden task replacement, is the mechanism of decline.", "outlook": "Expect continued double-digit percentage decline through the early 2030s as branches consolidate; the tellers who keep working will have retitled into universal banker, fraud-interdiction, or branch operations roles.", "what_would_raise_it": { "levers": [ { "dimension": "liability_shield", "change": "Bank Secrecy Act / FinCEN enforcement trend requiring a named human employee to observe and attest in-person cash transactions — e.g. CTR filing and SAR-triggering behavioral observation for cash over $10,000, plus state cash-access laws (San Francisco, NJ, NYC) mandating branches accept cash. If a rule made human attestation of large-cash origin non-delegable to a kiosk, teller-level sign-off gains a thin statutory floor.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 3 }, { "dimension": "task_resistance", "change": "Task-mix shift is genuinely available here: as deposits and balance queries move to apps, the residual in-branch loop becomes fraud interdiction — elder financial exploitation holds, scam-in-progress interruption, forged-endorsement catches. Several states (e.g. under NASAA's model act, adopted in 30+ states) already authorize or require frontline staff to place holds on suspected exploitation. If banks formally reclassify the role toward fraud-prevention specialist, the remaining day is judgment-tier.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "judgment_accountability", "change": "Same NASAA/state elder-exploitation statutes give the employee discretion to delay a disbursement — a consequential call under ambiguity with safe-harbor protection. If banks document and audit teller-initiated holds as an owned decision rather than an escalation, this rises.", "plausibility": "plausible", "would_add": 4 }, { "dimension": "embodiment", "change": "Physical cash and coin volume is the durable floor: vault balancing, counterfeit detection by feel, coin/currency ordering for small businesses, safe-deposit box dual-control access. This does not rise on its own, but a US retreat from cashless trend (state cash-mandate laws) preserves the existing 7 rather than eroding it.", "plausibility": "already happening", "would_add": 1 } ], "ceiling_note": "No realistic route to a meaningful trust premium: buyers do not choose a bank for its tellers, and branch consolidation is driven by real-estate economics, not task capability. Even with every lever, headcount per branch keeps falling — the levers protect the character of surviving roles, not their number." }, "adjudication": { "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict", "outcome": "corroborated", "run_totals": [ 23, 26 ], "run_verdicts": [ "COOKED", "COOKED" ] }, "employment_history": { "points": [ { "y": 2017, "emp": 491150, "wage": 28110 }, { "y": 2018, "emp": 468470, "wage": 29450 }, { "y": 2019, "emp": 442120, "wage": 31230 }, { "y": 2020, "emp": 423570, "wage": 32620 }, { "y": 2021, "emp": 364210, "wage": 36310 }, { "y": 2022, "emp": 352440, "wage": 36380 }, { "y": 2023, "emp": 340820, "wage": 37640 }, { "y": 2024, "emp": 339340, "wage": 39340 }, { "y": 2025, "emp": 329480, "wage": 43030 } ], "from": 2017, "to": 2025, "change_pct": -32.9, "comparable_from": 2019, "spans_soc_revision": true }, "pivots": [ { "slug": "tax-examiners-and-collectors-and-revenue-agents", "title": "Tax Examiners and Collectors, and Revenue Agents", "verdict": "EXPOSED", "risk_resistance": 34, "median_wage": 62370, "overlap": 67, "skills_to_close": [ "Reading Comprehension", "Critical Thinking", "Speaking", "Learning Strategies" ] } ], "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms" }