Will AI replace Curators?
AI reaches a large part of this job’s work.
53/100
High exposure
More exposed to AI than 83% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 35% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 79% of the work
What the job involves
Administer collections, such as artwork, collectibles, historic items, or scientific specimens of museums or other institutions. May conduct instructional, research, or public service activities of institution.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(5)
- Plan and organize the acquisition, storage, and exhibition of collections and related materials, including the selection of exhibition themes and designs, and develop or install exhibit materials.
- Provide information from the institution's holdings to other curators and to the public.
- Plan and conduct special research projects in area of interest or expertise.
- Write and review grant proposals, journal articles, institutional reports, and publicity materials.
- Study, examine, and test acquisitions to authenticate their origin, composition, history, and to assess their current value.
Within reach(7)
- Design, organize, or conduct tours, workshops, and instructional or educational sessions to acquaint individuals with an institution's facilities and materials.
- Negotiate and authorize purchase, sale, exchange, or loan of collections.
- Develop and maintain an institution's registration, cataloging, and basic record-keeping systems, using computer databases.
- Confer with the board of directors to formulate and interpret policies, to determine budget requirements, and to plan overall operations.
- Schedule events and organize details, including refreshment, entertainment, decorations, and the collection of any fees.
and 2 more
Out of reach(3)
- Attend meetings, conventions, and civic events to promote use of institution's services, to seek financing, and to maintain community alliances.
- Train and supervise curatorial, fiscal, technical, research, and clerical staff, as well as volunteers or interns.
- Inspect premises to assess the need for repairs and to ensure that climate and pest control issues are addressed.
Also called
Museum Curator · Collections Manager · Curator · Collections Curator · Education Curator · Coin Collector · Field Collector · Herbarium Curator
Related jobs
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