Open, read, route, and distribute incoming mail or other materials and answer routine letters.

“Open, read, route, and distribute incoming mail or other materials and answer routine letters.” is a core task performed by Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive. Among the occupation's 32 rated tasks, workers place it 13th by importance (#20 most important). About 81% 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.

• Process shipments or mail. in Performing Administrative Activities
• Distribute materials, supplies, or resources. in Monitoring and Controlling Resources

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E1. Direct exposure — a language model could plausibly cut the time to do this task 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 1.00. Automation potential label: T3.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Answer telephones and give information to callers, take messages, or transfer calls to appropriate individuals. · importance 4.3
• Greet visitors or callers and handle their inquiries or direct them to the appropriate persons according to their needs. · importance 4.3
• Use computers for various applications, such as database management or word processing. · importance 4.2
• Create, maintain, and enter information into databases. · importance 4.2
• Perform payroll functions, such as maintaining timekeeping information and processing and submitting payroll. · importance 4.2
• Collect and deposit money into accounts, disburse funds from cash accounts to pay bills or invoices, keep records of collections and disbursements, and ensure accounts are balanced. · importance 4.2
• Operate office equipment, such as fax machines, copiers, or phone systems and arrange for repairs when equipment malfunctions. · importance 4.1
• Set up and manage paper or electronic filing systems, recording information, updating paperwork, or maintaining documents, such as attendance records, correspondence, or other material. · importance 4.0
• Operate electronic mail systems and coordinate the flow of information, internally or with other organizations. · importance 4.0
• Schedule and confirm appointments for clients, customers, or supervisors. · importance 3.9
• Maintain scheduling and event calendars. · importance 3.8
• Compose, type, and distribute meeting notes, routine correspondence, or reports, such as presentations or expense, statistical, or monthly reports. · importance 3.8
• Complete forms in accordance with company procedures. · importance 3.8
• Provide services to customers, such as order placement or account information. · importance 3.8

See all tasks on the Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive 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
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

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

@misc{singulariki-task-2794,
  title  = {Open, read, route, and distribute incoming mail or other materials and answer routine letters.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-2794}
}