Will AI replace Cooling and Freezing Equipment Operators and Tenders?
AI reaches little of this job’s work.
4/100
Low exposure
More exposed to AI than 10% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 0% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 9% of the work
What the job involves
Operate or tend equipment such as cooling and freezing units, refrigerators, batch freezers, and freezing tunnels, to cool or freeze products, food, blood plasma, and chemicals.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Within reach(1)
- Record temperatures, amounts of materials processed, or test results on report forms.
Out of reach(17)
- Start machinery, such as pumps, feeders, or conveyors, and turn valves to heat, admit, or transfer products, refrigerants, or mixes.
- Monitor pressure gauges, ammeters, flowmeters, thermometers, or products, and adjust controls to maintain specified conditions, such as feed rate, product consistency, temperature, air pressure, and machine speed.
- Assemble equipment, and attach pipes, fittings, or valves, using hand tools.
- Correct machinery malfunctions by performing actions such as removing jams, and inform supervisors of malfunctions as necessary.
- Read dials and gauges on panel control boards to ascertain temperatures, alkalinities, and densities of mixtures, and turn valves to obtain specified mixtures.
and 12 more
Also called
Freezer Operator · Batch Freezer · Brewery Cellar Worker · Chiller Operator · Chiller Tender · Cooler Operator · Cooler Tender · Freezer Tunnel Operator
Related jobs
- Separating, Filtering, Clarifying, Precipitating, and Still Machine Setters, Operators, and Tenders8/100
- Heat Treating Equipment Setters, Operators, and Tenders, Metal and Plastic5/100
- Food and Tobacco Roasting, Baking, and Drying Machine Operators and Tenders7/100
- Cleaning, Washing, and Metal Pickling Equipment Operators and Tenders5/100
- Furnace, Kiln, Oven, Drier, and Kettle Operators and Tenders4/100
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