Will AI replace Political Scientists?
AI reaches most of this job’s work.
56/100
Very high exposure
More exposed to AI than 87% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 32% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 84% of the work
What the job involves
Study the origin, development, and operation of political systems. May study topics, such as public opinion, political decisionmaking, and ideology. May analyze the structure and operation of governments, as well as various political entities. May conduct public opinion surveys, analyze election results, or analyze public documents.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(5)
- Teach political science.
- Develop and test theories, using information from interviews, newspapers, periodicals, case law, historical papers, polls, or statistical sources.
- Interpret and analyze policies, public issues, legislation, or the operations of governments, businesses, and organizations.
- Evaluate programs and policies, and make related recommendations to institutions and organizations.
- Write drafts of legislative proposals, and prepare speeches, correspondence, and policy papers for governmental use.
Within reach(8)
- Maintain current knowledge of government policy decisions.
- Disseminate research results through academic publications, written reports, or public presentations.
- Advise political science students.
- Collect, analyze, and interpret data, such as election results and public opinion surveys, reporting on findings, recommendations, and conclusions.
- Identify issues for research and analysis.
and 3 more
Out of reach(1)
- Serve on committees.
Also called
Political Analyst · Political Consultant · Citizen Participation Specialist · Government Affairs Researcher · Government Affairs Specialist · Health Policy Analyst · Legislative Affairs Specialist · Legislative Analyst
Related jobs
- Political Science Teachers, Postsecondary41/100
- Sociologists61/100
- Law Teachers, Postsecondary60/100
- Economists47/100
- Legislators52/100
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