Conduct own research in field of expertise.

“Conduct own research in field of expertise.” is a core task performed by Natural Sciences Managers. Among the occupation's 16 rated tasks, workers place it 4th by importance (#13 most important). About 86% 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.

• Research biological or ecological phenomena. in Getting Information
• Research technology designs or applications. in Getting Information

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: T1.

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.

• 0.002% share of AI-use records mapped to this task
• Most common interaction: learning
• Average autonomy of the AI: 3.7 (1–5; higher = more autonomous)
• 82% 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.

Working with AI vs. handing it off

Of the AI conversations mapped to this task, the split between people working alongside AI and people delegating the task to it.

How people interact with AI on this task

Other tasks in this occupation

• Hire, supervise, or evaluate engineers, technicians, researchers, or other staff. · importance 4.3
• Design or coordinate successive phases of problem analysis, solution proposals, or testing. · importance 4.2
• Plan or direct research, development, or production activities. · importance 4.2
• Provide for stewardship of plant or animal resources or habitats, studying land use, monitoring animal populations, or providing shelter, resources, or medical treatment for animals. · importance 4.2
• Review project activities and prepare and review research, testing, or operational reports. · importance 4.1
• Confer with scientists, engineers, regulators, or others to plan or review projects or to provide technical assistance. · importance 4.0
• Develop client relationships and communicate with clients to explain proposals, present research findings, establish specifications, or discuss project status. · importance 4.0
• Determine scientific or technical goals within broad outlines provided by top management and make detailed plans to accomplish these goals. · importance 3.9
• Prepare project proposals. · importance 3.9
• Develop or implement policies, standards, or procedures for the architectural, scientific, or technical work performed to ensure regulatory compliance or operations enhancement. · importance 3.7
• Recruit personnel or oversee the development or maintenance of staff competence. · importance 3.6
• Prepare and administer budgets, approve and review expenditures, and prepare financial reports. · importance 3.5
• Develop innovative technology or train staff for its implementation. · importance 3.3
• Make presentations at professional meetings to further knowledge in the field. · importance 3.2

See all tasks on the Natural Sciences Managers 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-7214,
  title  = {Conduct own research in field of expertise.},
  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-7214}
}