Identify potential customers.

Identify potential customers. is a detailed work activity in O*NET — a concrete unit of work shared across 11 occupations and seen in 15 occupation-specific tasks. It rolls up into the broader work activity Identify business or organizational opportunities. in Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events .

Detailed work activities are the most granular shared layer in O*NET's work-activity hierarchy (Generalized → Intermediate → Detailed → occupation-specific task). The figures below describe how this activity shows up across the economy and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the work will be automated.

AI exposure

Of the 15 tasks under this activity that the OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rated, 14 (93%) are flagged as directly exposed to language models (E1) or exposed via model-powered tools (E2).

The Anthropic Economic Index observes real AI use on 4 of these tasks, with a mean mapped-usage share of 0.010% per task.

Exposure estimates overlap with model capabilities — whether a model could speed the task up — not whether the work will be done by software. Observed AI use is augmentation and assistance today, not jobs replaced.

Member tasks

Occupation-specific tasks O*NET maps to this detailed work activity, most important first.

• Maintain assigned account bases while developing new accounts. · Advertising Sales Agents · importance 4.5 · exposure with tools
• Locate and contact potential clients to offer advertising services. · Advertising Sales Agents · importance 4.5 · exposure with tools
• Generate solar energy customer leads to develop new accounts. · Solar Sales Representatives and Assessors · importance 4.4 · exposure with tools
• Develop prospect lists. · Door-to-Door Sales Workers, News and Street Vendors, and Related Workers · importance 4.4 · exposure with tools
• Contact previous clients for prospecting of referral business. · Real Estate Sales Agents · importance 4.4 · exposure with tools
• Identify interested and qualified customers to provide them with additional information. · Demonstrators and Product Promoters · importance 4.2 · no direct exposure
• Seek out new clients and develop clientele by networking to find new customers and generate lists of prospective clients. · Insurance Sales Agents · importance 4.1 · exposure with tools
• Obtain names and telephone numbers of potential customers from sources such as telephone directories, magazine reply cards, and lists purchased from other organizations. · Telemarketers · importance 4.1 · exposure with tools
• Identify resale opportunities and support them to achieve sales plans. · Sales Engineers · importance 4.0 · exposure with tools
• Identify new advertising markets, and propose products to serve them. · Advertising Sales Agents · importance 3.9 · exposure with tools
• Identify prospective customers by using business directories, following leads from existing clients, participating in organizations and clubs, and attending trade shows and conferences. · Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products · importance 3.9 · exposure with tools
• Research and identify potential customers for products or services. · Sales Engineers · importance 3.9 · exposure with tools
• Identify prospective customers, using business directories, leads from existing clients, participation in organizations, or trade show or conference attendance. · Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Technical and Scientific Products · importance 3.8 · exposure with tools
• Identify group or individual target investors for a specific fund. · Investment Fund Managers · importance 3.5 · exposure with tools
• Identify prospective customers using business directories, leads from clients, or information from conferences or trade shows. · Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel · exposure with tools

Occupations that perform this

• Advertising Sales Agents
• Solar Sales Representatives and Assessors
• Door-to-Door Sales Workers, News and Street Vendors, and Related Workers
• Real Estate Sales Agents
• Demonstrators and Product Promoters
• Insurance Sales Agents
• Telemarketers
• Sales Engineers
• Sales Representatives, Wholesale and Manufacturing, Except Technical and Scientific Products
• Investment Fund Managers
• Sales Representatives of Services, Except Advertising, Insurance, Financial Services, and Travel

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27) Anthropic
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-identify-potential-customers,
  title  = {Identify potential customers.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/detailed-activities/identify-potential-customers}
}