Will AI replace Nurse Practitioners?
AI reaches some of this job’s work, but most of it stays with people.
32/100
Moderate exposure
More exposed to AI than 48% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 7% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 56% of the work
What the job involves
Diagnose and treat acute, episodic, or chronic illness, independently or as part of a healthcare team. May focus on health promotion and disease prevention. May order, perform, or interpret diagnostic tests such as lab work and x rays. May prescribe medication. Must be registered nurses who have specialized graduate education.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(2)
- Analyze and interpret patients' histories, symptoms, physical findings, or diagnostic information to develop appropriate diagnoses.
- Provide patients or caregivers with assistance in locating health care resources.
Within reach(13)
- Maintain complete and detailed records of patients' health care plans and prognoses.
- Develop treatment plans, based on scientific rationale, standards of care, and professional practice guidelines.
- Provide patients with information needed to promote health, reduce risk factors, or prevent disease or disability.
- Diagnose or treat complex, unstable, comorbid, episodic, or emergency conditions in collaboration with other health care providers as necessary.
- Recommend diagnostic or therapeutic interventions with attention to safety, cost, invasiveness, simplicity, acceptability, adherence, and efficacy.
and 8 more
Out of reach(12)
- Prescribe medication dosages, routes, and frequencies, based on such patient characteristics as age and gender.
- Diagnose or treat chronic health care problems, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.
- Prescribe medications based on efficacy, safety, and cost as legally authorized.
- Diagnose or treat acute health care problems, such as illnesses, infections, or injuries.
- Detect and respond to adverse drug reactions, with special attention to vulnerable populations such as infants, children, pregnant and lactating women, or older adults.
and 7 more
Also called
Nurse Practitioner (NP) · Pediatric Nurse Practitioner (PNP) · NP · PNP · Adult Nurse Practitioner · Gastroenterology Nurse Practitioner · Cardiology Nurse Practitioner · FNP
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