Confer with customer representatives, vendors, plant executives, or publisher to establish technical specifications and to determine subject material to be developed for publication.

“Confer with customer representatives, vendors, plant executives, or publisher to establish technical specifications and to determine subject material to be developed for publication.” is a core task performed by Technical Writers. Among the occupation's 15 rated tasks, workers place it 1st by importance (#15 most important). About 78% 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.

• Confer with clients to determine needs or order specifications. in Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E0. No direct exposure — current language models give little or no time savings on this task.

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 0.00. Automation potential label: T1.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Organize material and complete writing assignment according to set standards regarding order, clarity, conciseness, style, and terminology. · importance 4.7
• Maintain records and files of work and revisions. · importance 4.2
• Edit, standardize, or make changes to material prepared by other writers or establishment personnel. · importance 4.0
• Select photographs, drawings, sketches, diagrams, and charts to illustrate material. · importance 4.0
• Interview production and engineering personnel and read journals and other material to become familiar with product technologies and production methods. · importance 4.0
• Develop or maintain online help documentation. · importance 3.9
• Assist in laying out material for publication. · importance 3.9
• Study drawings, specifications, mockups, and product samples to integrate and delineate technology, operating procedure, and production sequence and detail. · importance 3.8
• Arrange for typing, duplication, and distribution of material. · importance 3.8
• Observe production, developmental, and experimental activities to determine operating procedure and detail. · importance 3.8
• Review manufacturer's and trade catalogs, drawings and other data relative to operation, maintenance, and service of equipment. · importance 3.7
• Analyze developments in specific field to determine need for revisions in previously published materials and development of new material. · importance 3.7
• Draw sketches to illustrate specified materials or assembly sequence. · importance 3.7
• Review published materials and recommend revisions or changes in scope, format, content, and methods of reproduction and binding. · importance 3.6

See all tasks on the Technical Writers 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-3969,
  title  = {Confer with customer representatives, vendors, plant executives, or publisher to establish technical specifications and to determine subject material to be developed for publication.},
  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-3969}
}