HUMANPLACE

Occupation

Optometrists

Diagnose, manage, and treat conditions and diseases of the human eye and visual system. Examine eyes and visual system, diagnose problems or impairments, prescribe corrective lenses, and provide treatment. May prescribe therapeutic drugs to treat specific eye conditions.

76 AI exposure
34 Human advantage
62 Market demand
57 AI leverage

Is Optometrists a safe career from AI?

Optometrists scores 76 out of 100 for AI exposure, which is high. A large share of this work is the kind current AI systems are measurably good at. That is not a prediction the job disappears, and the research does not support one. It means more of this role is likely to change than most.

Its human advantage score is 34, which is low. Most of this role can be done through a screen, and that is the half of the labor market AI has reached first. Market demand scores 62 out of 100, combining how many of these jobs exist with where that number is heading. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment growing 9.5% over ten years.

What Optometrists pay

The median wage is $134,830 a year. The lower quarter earns under $103,310 and the upper quarter over $163,710. About 41,890 people do this work in the United States.

Where Optometrists can go next

Occupations that share most of what this job already requires, ranked by how much carries over.

Nurse Anesthetists 93% of the skills carry over $223k median
General Internal Medicine Physicians 91% of the skills carry over $236k median
Dentists, General 90% of the skills carry over $173k median
Nurse Practitioners 89% of the skills carry over $129k median

Thinking about moving out of Optometrists?

Answer three questions and see which jobs you could move into, what carries over from your own experience, and who is hiring.

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Where this comes from

Work content and transitions from O*NET, the US Department of Labor's occupational database. Wages and employment projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. AI exposure from published research measuring which occupations current AI capabilities overlap with. None of it is a forecast, and none of these numbers are ours: they are public data, put next to each other.

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