Obtain information about customer needs or preferences by conferring with sales or purchasing personnel.

“Obtain information about customer needs or preferences by conferring with sales or purchasing personnel.” is a core task performed by Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products. Among the occupation's 20 rated tasks, workers place it 14th by importance (#7 most important). About 90% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Communicate with others about business strategies. in Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E2. Exposure with tools — software built on top of a language model (not the model alone) could cut the time by at least half.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 0.50. Automation potential label: T2.

How AI is actually used on this kind of task

The Anthropic Economic Index observes how people actually use AI on tasks like this one across millions of real conversations.

• 94% of interactions still needed a human in the loop

Observed AI use describes people choosing to use AI as a tool on this kind of task today. It is augmentation and assistance, not a measure of jobs replaced.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Buy merchandise or commodities for resale to wholesale or retail consumers. · importance 4.6
• Negotiate prices, discount terms, or transportation arrangements with suppliers. · importance 4.3
• Consult with store or merchandise managers about budgets or goods to be purchased. · importance 4.2
• Examine, select, order, or purchase merchandise consistent with quality, quantity, specification requirements, or other factors, such as environmental soundness. · importance 4.1
• Provide clerks with information to print on price tags, such as price, mark-ups or mark-downs, manufacturer number, season code, or style number. · importance 4.1
• Recommend mark-up rates, mark-down rates, or merchandise selling prices. · importance 4.1
• Authorize payment of invoices or return of merchandise. · importance 3.9
• Monitor and analyze sales records, trends, or economic conditions to anticipate consumer buying patterns, company sales, and needed inventory. · importance 3.9
• Collaborate with vendors to obtain or develop desired products. · importance 3.7
• Train or supervise sales or clerical staff. · importance 3.7
• Inspect merchandise or products to determine quality, value, or yield. · importance 3.5
• Determine which products should be featured in advertising, the advertising medium to be used, or when the ads should be run. · importance 3.4
• Monitor competitors' sales activities by following their advertisements in newspapers or other media. · importance 3.4
• Conduct sales meetings to introduce new merchandise. · importance 3.2

See all tasks on the Wholesale and Retail Buyers, Except Farm Products page.

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-task-20714,
  title  = {Obtain information about customer needs or preferences by conferring with sales or purchasing personnel.},
  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/tasks/task-20714}
}