Will AI replace Cooks, Restaurant?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
8/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 19% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 2% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 11% of the work
What the job involves
Prepare, season, and cook dishes such as soups, meats, vegetables, or desserts in restaurants. May order supplies, keep records and accounts, price items on menu, or plan menu.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(1)
- Plan and price menu items.
Within reach(3)
- Estimate expected food consumption, requisition or purchase supplies, or procure food from storage.
- Consult with supervisory staff to plan menus, taking into consideration factors such as costs and special event needs.
- Keep records and accounts.
Out of reach(16)
- Portion, arrange, and garnish food, and serve food to waiters or patrons.
- Ensure freshness of food and ingredients by checking for quality, keeping track of old and new items, and rotating stock.
- Season and cook food according to recipes or personal judgment and experience.
- Ensure food is stored and cooked at correct temperature by regulating temperature of ovens, broilers, grills, and roasters.
- Turn or stir foods to ensure even cooking.
and 11 more
Also called
Banquet Cook · Line Cook · Railroad Cook · Station Cook · Breakfast Cook · Prep Cook (Preparation Cook) · Saucier · Broiler Cook
Related jobs
- Food Preparation Workers5/100
- Cooks, Short Order0/100
- Bakers12/100
- Cooks, Fast Food2/100
- 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