Will AI replace Mathematicians?
AI reaches most of this job’s work.
68/100
Very high exposure
More exposed to AI than 96% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 37% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 100% of the work
What the job involves
Conduct research in fundamental mathematics or in application of mathematical techniques to science, management, and other fields. Solve problems in various fields using mathematical methods.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(4)
- Develop new principles and new relationships between existing mathematical principles to advance mathematical science.
- Conduct research to extend mathematical knowledge in traditional areas, such as algebra, geometry, probability, and logic.
- Address the relationships of quantities, magnitudes, and forms through the use of numbers and symbols.
- Develop mathematical or statistical models of phenomena to be used for analysis or for computational simulation.
Within reach(7)
- Maintain knowledge in the field by reading professional journals, talking with other mathematicians, and attending professional conferences.
- Disseminate research by writing reports, publishing papers, or presenting at professional conferences.
- Assemble sets of assumptions, and explore the consequences of each set.
- Perform computations and apply methods of numerical analysis to data.
- Apply mathematical theories and techniques to the solution of practical problems in business, engineering, the sciences, or other fields.
and 2 more
Also called
Cryptographer · Mathematician · Computational Mathematician · Cryptographic Vulnerability Analyst · Algebraist · Cipher Expert · Cryptanalyst · Engineering Mathematician
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