Will AI replace Writers and Authors?
On paper, AI could touch ~87% of the work in Writers and Authors — and unlike most jobs, it's already showing up in the real workday, not just the theory.
O*NET-SOC 27-3043
How your 17 core tasks split
Top = what GPT-4 judged AI could speed up. Bottom = how much AI was actually used for these tasks (Anthropic's March 2026 report, usage from Aug & Nov 2025). The gap is the real story.
Back in 2023, GPT-4 judged AI could, in theory, assist with a high share of this job's tasks (~87%). By late 2025, real-world AI use had reached about 25% of its task activity (already common). The gap between that 2023 forecast and today is the real story.
Where this job sits among 738 jobs
Each dot is one of 738 U.S. jobs. Right = AI can do more of it. Up = AI is actually used more.
Read this as a range, not a verdict
The signals here partly disagree — AI's theoretical reach (~87%) and its real-world use (~25%) tell different stories. AI-risk scores also shift a lot by which model does the rating (2.7%–51.5% in one 2026 study), so this is a direction of travel, not a fixed answer.
See all 17 tasks, ratedBased on real task-level AI scores — click to collapse
- Vary language and tone of messages based on product and medium.
- Present drafts and ideas to clients.
- Discuss with the client the product, advertising themes and methods, and any changes that should be made in advertising copy.
- Write articles, bulletins, sales letters, speeches, and other related informative, marketing and promotional material.
- Write fiction or nonfiction prose, such as short stories, novels, biographies, articles, descriptive or critical analyses, and essays.
- Develop factors such as themes, plots, characterizations, psychological analyses, historical environments, action, and dialogue to create material.
- Prepare works in appropriate format for publication, and send them to publishers or producers.
- Revise written material to meet personal standards and to satisfy needs of clients, publishers, directors, or producers.
- Confer with clients, editors, publishers, or producers to discuss changes or revisions to written material.
- Choose subject matter and suitable form to express personal feelings and experiences or ideas, or to narrate stories or events.
- Conduct research to obtain factual information and authentic detail, using sources such as newspaper accounts, diaries, and interviews.
- Plan project arrangements or outlines, and organize material accordingly.
- Follow appropriate procedures to get copyrights for completed work.
- Collaborate with other writers on specific projects.
- Develop advertising campaigns for a wide range of clients, working with an advertising agency's creative director and art director to determine the best way to present advertising information.
- Review advertising trends, consumer surveys, and other data regarding marketing of goods and services to determine the best way to promote products.
- Attend book launches and publicity events, or conduct public readings.
How we measured this — and how fresh it is
AI's theoretical reach data: 2023
From GPTs-are-GPTs (Eloundou et al.), where GPT-4 rated how much of each task an AI tool could meaningfully speed up. This is the most recent open, commercially-usable occupation-level potential dataset — it dates to 2023. Newer multi-model re-runs exist but swing wildly (one 2026 study saw "high-risk" jobs range 2.7%–51.5% by model) and aren't openly licensed, so we show the stable 2023 baseline and pair it with newer real-world data.
Real-world AI use 2026 report
From the Anthropic Economic Index, which observes how real Claude conversations map onto each occupation's tasks. Published in Anthropic's March 2026 labor-market report, based on usage measured in Aug & Nov 2025 (Sonnet 4 / 4.5).
Task list & ratings O*NET 30.3
Tasks come from O*NET 30.3. Each task's "AI can do / speeds up / still on you" tier uses the real task-level exposure scores from GPTs-are-GPTs (E1 / E2 / E0) — not a guess from keywords.
Sources: O*NET 30.3 (CC BY 4.0) · GPTs-are-GPTs (MIT, 2023) · Anthropic Economic Index (CC BY, Aug & Nov 2025). Page compiled June 2026. "O*NET" is a trademark of the U.S. Department of Labor.
This page is for general informational purposes only and is not career, financial, or employment advice. AI exposure reflects research estimates of task overlap, not predictions about any individual's job, employer, or future employment.