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Understanding how automation changes work — task by task, with the evidence shown and the uncertainty admitted.

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On this pageWhich technologiesHow it got hereMethod and sources
Occupations›Actor and model›How we know

Actor and model — how we know

The page itself gives the judgements. This one gives what they rest on: which technologies bear on the work, how the estimate moved since language models reached the public, and the method behind both.

Assessed
2026-09-30
With evidence
4/5
Verified events
12

Which technologies matter here#

Four separate signals. They are deliberately not added together — a job exposed to two technologies is not twice as exposed.

Cognitive automation
Principal screen performanceStage and live performance
Physical automation
Principal screen performanceBackground and extras workFashion and commercial modellingStage and live performance
Process & self-service
Likeness rights and consent

How it got here#

The index is not a static number. This is where it would have sat at each capability checkpoint since ChatGPT — reconstructed, and labelled as such.

Reconstructed · platform inferenceEstimated today for each past checkpoint — not measured at the time. 18 → 42.
1007550250
Model employment will decline 2 percent from 2025 to 2035, as AI that lets companies reuse images of products and models may limit demand, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics estimatedA principle strongly favoring human performances is written into the 2026 US actors' union agreement, with prior written notice before a synthetic performer takes a human roleAdvertisers must conspicuously disclose a synthetic performer in New York ads, with penalties of $1,000 and then $5,000, under a law signed in December 2025Images featuring digital twins of models were published for the first time by H&M, co-created with a dedicated team, the retailer saidReplica clauses signed without counsel or a union are void in New York when they let a digital replica replace in-person work, under a law signed in December 2024Contract clauses letting a digital replica replace a performer's in-person work are unenforceable in California unless the performer was represented by a lawyer or a unionUsing a deceased performer's digital replica in an audiovisual work without consent carries liability of at least $10,000 in CaliforniaA campaign generated entirely by generative AI, trained on real photos of the garments, was created for Mango's teen line, the fashion group saidClear and conspicuous consent is required for a performer's digital replica under the 2023 US actors' union agreement, while synthetic performers need only notice and bargainingTests of AI-generated models to supplement human models were planned by Levi Strauss & Co., which then said it was not scaling back live photo shoots123456789not assessed
2022 H22024 H2Now

—— this stretch contains a verified event- - - no event in this stretch — reconstruction only0 = no task exposed, 100 = every task exposed

● 10 verified events for this occupation, plotted at the date it happened — the parts of the line near a marker are anchored to something checkable.

Starts at 18 because digital effects and crowd duplication had long existed before this chart begins, while performing and posing stayed with people. It climbs with the releases that could generate convincing faces and bodies, which reached catalogue and campaign modelling first, and stays below the middle because the actors' union contract requires consent for replicas and favours human performances, state laws void vague replica clauses and require disclosure, and live performance happens in the room.

12022 H218General-purpose text generation reaches the public. Before this point, exposure came from automation that was already deployed — OCR, RPA, machine vision, self-checkout, dispatch algorithms. ChatGPT research preview (2022-11-30) ↗
22023 H121A general model that passes professional exams. First-draft quality crosses the threshold where professional work starts using it. GPT-4 (2023-03-14) ↗
32023 H225Vision input, long context and tool calling. Models can be pointed at documents and connected to systems, which is what moves process work rather than writing work. GPT-4 Turbo:128k 上下文、视觉、工具调用(DevDay) (2023-11-06) ↗
42024 H129The same capability gets much cheaper and faster. Nothing new becomes possible; a lot becomes affordable at volume, which is when deployment decisions change.
52024 H233Reasoning models that work through multi-step problems, and the first models that operate a computer by looking at the screen. The second one is what reaches software-operating jobs. OpenAI o1(推理);同期 Claude 的 computer use 进入公测 (2024-09-12) ↗
62025 H136Agents begin operating real software end to end rather than producing text for a person to paste. This is also when the first public reversals appear — organisations that automated and partly undid it. Claude 3.7 Sonnet 与 Claude Code:混合推理 + 命令行编码代理 (2025-02-24) ↗
72025 H239Long context and tool use become the default rather than a feature. Capability gains continue; the visible constraint shifts from what models can do to liability, procurement and cost. GPT-5(2025-08-07);Claude Opus 4.5(2025-11-24) (2025-08-07) ↗
82026 H141Long-horizon agents land inside specific industry workflows. Adoption becomes sector-specific rather than general. GPT-5.5:「专为实际工作打造」 (2026-04-23) ↗
9Now42The current assessment — this point is the impact index published on the occupation's page, so the curve is anchored to a number the site already stands behind. Worth noting for the flat curves: in the same weeks, a research preview of a shared specification for AI agents to operate physical devices was opened to research labs and manufacturers. That is the first capability class pointed at the physical occupations whose lines here barely move. GPT-6 Astra(2026-09-03);Claude Fable 5.1 / Mythos 5.1(2026-09-01);Model Hardware Standard 研究预览(2026-08-27) (2026-09-03) ↗

A flat line is not a forecast of safety. It says which tasks automation has reached so far — the occupations that moved least here are the ones where the constraint is physical or regulatory, and both of those can change.

Method and sources#

Assessment date
2026-09-30
Basis of the task judgements
4 evidence-backed · 1 platform inference · 0 not enough evidence
Verified events
12

How we assess an occupation →

← Back to Actor and modelThe other layer: every task, one by one →Skills, knowledge and related jobs (O*NET) →