Will AI replace Cooks, Fast Food?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
2/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 4% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 3% of the work
What the job involves
Prepare and cook food in a fast food restaurant with a limited menu. Duties of these cooks are limited to preparation of a few basic items and normally involve operating large-volume single-purpose cooking equipment.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(1)
- Order and take delivery of supplies.
Out of reach(18)
- Maintain sanitation, health, and safety standards in work areas.
- Clean food preparation areas, cooking surfaces, and utensils.
- Read food order slips or receive verbal instructions as to food required by patron, and prepare and cook food according to instructions.
- Verify that prepared food meets requirements for quality and quantity.
- Clean, stock, and restock workstations and display cases.
and 13 more
Also called
Fast Food Cook · Fry Cook · Pizza Maker · Cook · Line Cook · Fryline Attendant · Cook Line Worker · Food Cook
Related jobs
- Food Preparation Workers5/100
- Cooks, Short Order0/100
- Cooks, Restaurant8/100
- Bakers12/100
- Cooks, Institution and Cafeteria11/100
What these numbers mean
The score is the share of this job’s work, weighted by how important and frequent each task is, that AI could do in half the time: tasks an AI model could do alone count in full, tasks that need software built on AI count half.
“AI already used” is the share of the work in tasks where people are recorded using AI today. “As AI tools mature” counts every task AI could halve, with or without extra software.
The percentile compares the score with every job’s, weighted by how many people in the US do each one. Exposure means AI could change how the work is done, not that the job goes away. These are estimates for the typical job, not predictions.
Sources
- O*NET 31.0 Database, U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration
- GPTs are GPTs: Labor market impact potential of LLMs (task labels), Eloundou, Manning, Mishkin & Rock (2023), OpenAI and University of Pennsylvania
- Anthropic Economic Index: labor market impacts (task penetration), Anthropic
- Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 (national and metropolitan areas), U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics