Will AI replace Teaching Assistants, Postsecondary?
AI reaches some of this job’s work, but most of it stays with people.
36/100
Moderate exposure
More exposed to AI than 57% of US workers.
- AI already used in
- 11% of the work
- As AI tools mature: up to
- 55% of the work
What the job involves
Assist faculty or other instructional staff in postsecondary institutions by performing instructional support activities, such as developing teaching materials, leading discussion groups, preparing and giving examinations, and grading examinations or papers.
Where AI reaches the work
The job’s main tasks, heaviest first, by how far AI reaches them.
Already happening(2)
- Develop teaching materials, such as syllabi, visual aids, answer keys, supplementary notes, or course Web sites.
- Prepare or proctor examinations.
Within reach(9)
- Evaluate and grade examinations, assignments, or papers, and record grades.
- Teach undergraduate-level courses.
- Inform students of the procedures for completing and submitting class work, such as lab reports.
- Schedule and maintain regular office hours to meet with students.
- Order or obtain materials needed for classes.
and 4 more
Out of reach(9)
- Tutor or mentor students who need additional instruction.
- Return assignments to students in accordance with established deadlines.
- Meet with supervisors to discuss students' grades or to complete required grade-related paperwork.
- Copy and distribute classroom materials.
- Lead discussion sections, tutorials, or laboratory sections.
and 4 more
Also called
Teaching Assistant (TA) · Teaching Fellow · TA · Research Assistant (RA) · RA · Graduate Assistant · Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) · GSI
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