{
  "source": "Cooked Index — occupational AI risk register",
  "page": "https://cookedindex.com/jobs/tile-and-stone-setters/",
  "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": "Tile and Stone Setters",
    "soc_code": "47-2044",
    "category": "Construction",
    "us_employment": 35850,
    "median_annual_wage": 55690
  },
  "verdict": "SAFE",
  "risk_resistance": 67,
  "contested": false,
  "near_boundary": true,
  "dimensions": {
    "task_resistance": 18,
    "embodiment": 19,
    "liability_shield": 6,
    "trust_premium": 12,
    "judgment_accountability": 12
  },
  "reasoning": {
    "task_resistance": "Setting a mud bed to slope on a curbless shower, back-buttering a 24x48 porcelain panel so it doesn't lippage out, dry-fitting a diagonal on a room that's 3/8\" out of square over 12 feet, and mitering a stone edge on a wet saw are sequential judgment-plus-hand tasks with no digital substitute — the only pieces machines have taken are estimating and layout drawings, which is why it sits at 18 and not 20.",
    "embodiment": "You are on your knees on a hard substrate for six hours, hauling 50-lb boxes and mortar bags up stairs, running a wet saw in a room with no fixed dimensions, working around plumbing rough-ins, occupied houses, and half-finished framing — the only thing keeping it off 20 is that the site is at least indoors and enclosed most days.",
    "liability_shield": "No national tile licence exists; most states pull you in under a general contractor or specialty-trade licence above a dollar threshold, and ANSI A108/TCNA methods and Schluter or Laticrete waterproofing certifications are what customers and warranty claims actually reference — real credentials, but voluntary ones, which is a 6 rather than a plumber's 15.",
    "trust_premium": "Homeowners pick the setter whose finished bathroom they physically stood in and who the tile shop or GC recommends by name, and repeat remodel work follows the individual — but bid price still wins plenty of jobs and commercial fields are awarded on square-foot rate, holding this at 12.",
    "judgment_accountability": "You decide where the layout line starts so the cut tile lands behind the toilet rather than at the door, whether the slab deflection needs an uncoupling membrane or a full mud bed, and whether the substrate is dry enough to set on — calls that cause a failed shower pan and a gut-out two years later, but they are made against published TCNA details rather than in a vacuum."
  },
  "rationale": "Nearly all of the work is kneeling on a substrate cutting, buttering, and setting individual pieces to a flat plane in rooms that are never square, level, or the same twice — waterproofing a shower pan, planning layout so cuts land where they won't be seen, and matching veining across slabs. AI can already produce the estimate, the material takeoff, the layout diagram, and the customer quote, which is where the office side of a tile business gets squeezed. Robotic tile placement exists only in large flat commercial fields; residential remodels, curbless showers, stair nosings, and stone countertops remain hand skill, and homeowners hire the installer whose past bathrooms they can walk through.",
  "outlook": "Demand holds through the 2030s on remodels and aging housing stock; the paperwork and estimating side of the trade thins out, while certified wet-install and stone specialists see rates rise as fewer young workers enter.",
  "what_would_raise_it": {
    "levers": [
      {
        "dimension": "liability_shield",
        "change": "Wider adoption of state/local code amendments requiring a certified installer's signed affidavit for shower waterproofing assemblies — e.g. jurisdictions adopting ANSI A118.10 pan-flood-test documentation as an inspected, signed item, or insurers requiring ICC/CTEF Certified Tile Installer credentials as a condition of leak-damage coverage. Some ceramic tile manufacturers already void warranties unless installation is by a CTEF-certified setter; if that becomes a code or insurer condition rather than a warranty term, a named human becomes personally on the hook.",
        "plausibility": "plausible",
        "would_add": 4
      },
      {
        "dimension": "trust_premium",
        "change": "Continued growth of the referenceable-portfolio model — homeowners paying a premium specifically for the installer whose prior bathrooms they walked through, reinforced if platforms (Angi, Houzz) or NTCA promote verified-craftsman badges tied to a named individual rather than a firm. Also rises if AI-generated renders make homeowners more skeptical of marketing imagery and more insistent on physical references.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "judgment_accountability",
        "change": "Task-mix shift: as estimating, takeoff, layout diagrams and quoting move to software, the remaining day is disproportionately the calls that carry consequence — whether a substrate is flat enough to accept large-format panels, whether to float or self-level, where to place movement joints per TCNA EJ171, how to terminate waterproofing at a curbless threshold. The judgment tier becomes the whole job.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 3
      },
      {
        "dimension": "task_resistance",
        "change": "Same task-mix mechanism at the trade level: the office/pre-construction tier is what automates, and the residual is unpredictable-substrate handwork. Modest rise only, since task_resistance is already 18 and near ceiling.",
        "plausibility": "already happening",
        "would_add": 1
      }
    ],
    "ceiling_note": "task_resistance and embodiment are already near maximum; there is essentially no headroom there. The realistic movement is liability_shield, which is unusually low (6) for a trade where a failed shower pan causes five-figure water damage — a codified signed-installer requirement is the single largest available gain. Downward pressure to watch: shrinking crew sizes as the office side automates means fewer workers, not less-safe work."
  },
  "adjudication": {
    "method": "two independent runs agreed on the verdict",
    "outcome": "corroborated",
    "run_totals": [
      67,
      68
    ],
    "run_verdicts": [
      "SAFE",
      "SAFE"
    ]
  },
  "employment_history": {
    "points": [
      {
        "y": 2019,
        "emp": 40470,
        "wage": 43050
      },
      {
        "y": 2020,
        "emp": 38150,
        "wage": 44220
      },
      {
        "y": 2021,
        "emp": 41160,
        "wage": 47810
      },
      {
        "y": 2022,
        "emp": 40760,
        "wage": 48340
      },
      {
        "y": 2023,
        "emp": 42420,
        "wage": 48910
      },
      {
        "y": 2024,
        "emp": 38740,
        "wage": 52240
      },
      {
        "y": 2025,
        "emp": 35850,
        "wage": 55690
      }
    ],
    "from": 2019,
    "to": 2025,
    "change_pct": -11.4,
    "comparable_from": 2019,
    "spans_soc_revision": false
  },
  "pivots": [],
  "license": "https://cookedindex.com/terms"
}