Text atlas — every role, task and model suggestion (accessible equivalent of the sorting table)
Frontline retail / kirana counter
A neighbourhood shop or small store: owner, family members or one or two assistants. In South Asia much of this work is informal, cash-and-UPI mixed, and built on credit relationships.
Tasks for Frontline retail / kirana counter| Task | C / R / S | Model | Uncertainty | Note |
|---|
| Answer stock and price questions on WhatsApp | 3 / 1 / 0 | automate | low | Catalogue bots can draft replies, but regulars often message to be recognised, not just informed. |
| Reorder fast-moving goods from distributors | 2 / 1 / 2 | rethink | contested | Suggestions from sales history help; the call on credit terms and a distributor's reliability stays with the owner. |
| Decide who gets goods on udhaar (credit) | 1 / 3 / 3 | protect | low | A judgment about trust, family circumstance and neighbourhood ties. Scoring it automatically can quietly exclude people. |
| Record daily cash, UPI and khata entries | 3 / 0 / 1 | automate | low | Highly codifiable — if the shop has a phone, connectivity and a tool in the owner's language. |
| Handle a complaint about a short-weight packet | 1 / 3 / 2 | protect | medium | De-escalation and goodwill in a face-to-face relationship. |
| Arrange shelves for festival season | 1 / 0 / 1 | augment | medium | Physical, local and seasonal. Data may hint; the floor decides. |
Skills that may travel: Reading customers' unspoken needs → Customer success, community health outreach; Informal credit risk judgment → Microfinance field officer, collections with dignity; Supplier negotiation → Procurement, vendor management. Access: Device sharing, patchy data, tools mostly in English, and thin margins that make subscription software a real cost.
HR generalist
A people-operations role in a mid-sized organisation: hiring, policies, employee relations and records.
Tasks for HR generalist| Task | C / R / S | Model | Uncertainty | Note |
|---|
| Draft job descriptions and offer letters | 3 / 0 / 1 | automate | low | Templates and drafting tools do much of this; legal accuracy still needs review. |
| Screen CVs against a shortlist | 2 / 1 / 3 | rethink | medium | Automated screening can encode bias and exclude non-standard paths. High stakes for the candidate. |
| Answer routine policy questions | 3 / 1 / 1 | automate | medium | A policy assistant can answer; HR still owns whether the answer is right. |
| Investigate a workplace grievance | 0 / 3 / 3 | protect | low | Trust, fairness and confidentiality. Not a task to delegate to a model. |
| Run onboarding for a new cohort | 1 / 2 / 1 | protect | contested | Logistics can be automated; belonging cannot. |
| Prepare headcount and attrition reports | 3 / 0 / 2 | rethink | low | Faster with AI — but the numbers drive decisions about people, so the method needs owning. |
Skills that may travel: Structured interviewing → Research interviewing, UX research; Policy interpretation → Compliance, public-sector administration; Conflict mediation → Mediation, community dispute resolution. Access: Data-privacy rules and employee trust limit what can be fed to external tools.
School teacher
A classroom teacher in a government or private school, often with large classes and mixed learning levels.
Tasks for School teacher| Task | C / R / S | Model | Uncertainty | Note |
|---|
| Prepare worksheets and question banks | 3 / 0 / 1 | automate | low | Generation is fast; checking level, language and accuracy is the real work. |
| Grade objective tests | 3 / 0 / 2 | rethink | low | Codifiable — but marks feed into decisions about children. |
| Give feedback on a student essay | 2 / 2 / 2 | protect | contested | AI comments can scaffold; the teacher knows what this child needs to hear. |
| Notice a child who is struggling at home | 0 / 3 / 3 | protect | low | Attention, safeguarding and relationship. Protect. |
| Run a classroom discussion | 0 / 3 / 1 | protect | low | Live, social, improvised. |
| Fill attendance and admin registers | 3 / 0 / 0 | automate | low | Pure overhead; a good candidate to remove entirely — if the system allows. |
Skills that may travel: Explaining complex ideas simply → Instructional design, technical writing; Managing groups → Facilitation, training; Reading learning levels → Assessment design, edtech product. Access: Shared devices, school policy on AI tools, and uneven bandwidth across schools.
Graphic designer
Freelance or in-house, producing brand, social and print material.
Tasks for Graphic designer| Task | C / R / S | Model | Uncertainty | Note |
|---|
| Produce size variants of one approved design | 3 / 0 / 0 | automate | low | Resizing and reformatting are highly automatable. |
| Generate early moodboards | 2 / 0 / 0 | augment | low | Image tools speed exploration; taste chooses. |
| Interpret a vague brief with a client | 0 / 3 / 2 | protect | low | Finding out what the client actually means. |
| Decide the visual direction for a brand | 1 / 2 / 2 | protect | contested | Judgment, context and accountability for the result. |
| Check rights and licensing of assets | 2 / 0 / 3 | rethink | low | Generated imagery raises open IP questions; this step grows, not shrinks. |
| Retouch product photographs | 3 / 0 / 1 | automate | low | Increasingly tool-driven. |
Skills that may travel: Visual judgment → Art direction, product design; Client translation → Account management, UX research; Production discipline → Design operations, print production. Access: Tool subscriptions and hardware are costly for freelancers; client contracts may restrict AI use.
Marketing executive
Running campaigns, content and channels for a brand or small business.
Tasks for Marketing executive| Task | C / R / S | Model | Uncertainty | Note |
|---|
| Write first drafts of social posts and ads | 3 / 0 / 1 | automate | low | Drafting is fast now; voice and accuracy are the bottleneck. |
| Segment the customer list | 3 / 0 / 1 | automate | low | Analytics tools handle this well when data is clean. |
| Decide positioning against a competitor | 1 / 1 / 3 | augment | medium | Strategy with real downside if wrong. |
| Interview customers about why they churned | 0 / 3 / 2 | protect | low | Listening; people say different things to a person. |
| Approve claims in an ad for legal accuracy | 2 / 0 / 3 | rethink | low | Generated copy can overclaim; someone has to own it. |
| Report weekly campaign numbers | 3 / 0 / 0 | automate | low | Dashboards and summaries. |
Skills that may travel: Audience insight → Research, product management; Copy judgment → Editorial, communications; Experiment design → Growth analytics, policy pilots. Access: Platform costs and the quality of a small business's customer data.
Data / business analyst
Turning data into decisions — often early-career, often doing the codified work that AI handles well.
Tasks for Data / business analyst| Task | C / R / S | Model | Uncertainty | Note |
|---|
| Write routine SQL and spreadsheet formulas | 3 / 0 / 1 | automate | low | Coding assistants do much of this — the entry-level learning ladder is affected here. |
| Clean and reconcile messy data | 2 / 0 / 2 | rethink | medium | Faster with tools, but silent errors propagate. |
| Frame the business question with a stakeholder | 0 / 2 / 2 | protect | medium | What question is worth answering? |
| Build the monthly reporting deck | 3 / 0 / 1 | automate | low | Templated output. |
| Decide whether a result is causal or coincidental | 1 / 0 / 3 | augment | low | Methodological judgment; models produce confident wrong answers here. |
| Explain a counter-intuitive finding to leadership | 1 / 3 / 2 | protect | medium | Persuasion and trust. |
Skills that may travel: Problem framing → Strategy, policy analysis; Statistical scepticism → Audit, research, journalism; Data storytelling → Communications, teaching. Access: Enterprise data rules may bar external tools; juniors may lose the routine tasks they used to learn on.
Home care worker
Caring for older adults or people with disabilities at home — often low-paid, often women, often informal.
Tasks for Home care worker| Task | C / R / S | Model | Uncertainty | Note |
|---|
| Help a client bathe, dress and move safely | 0 / 3 / 3 | protect | low | Physical, intimate, relational. |
| Write the daily care log | 3 / 1 / 1 | automate | medium | Voice-to-text logging could save time — if it works in the worker's language. |
| Remind about medication schedules | 2 / 1 / 3 | rethink | medium | Reminders can be automated; noticing a missed dose and why cannot. |
| Notice changes in mood or health | 0 / 3 / 3 | protect | low | Attention over time. |
| Coordinate with family and doctors | 1 / 3 / 2 | protect | medium | Messaging tools help; the relationship carries it. |
| Plan weekly shopping and meals | 2 / 1 / 0 | augment | medium | Lists can be generated; preferences are lived. |
Skills that may travel: Patient observation → Nursing assistant, community health work; Calm under pressure → Emergency dispatch, front desk triage; Family communication → Social work, patient navigation. Access: Phones may be shared or basic; monitoring tech can become surveillance of the worker rather than support.
Customer support agent
Answering customers by chat, phone or email — a large employer in South Asian BPO and IT-enabled services.
Tasks for Customer support agent| Task | C / R / S | Model | Uncertainty | Note |
|---|
| Answer common FAQ-type queries | 3 / 1 / 0 | automate | low | Chatbots and AI agents handle a growing share. |
| Summarise a ticket history before a call | 3 / 0 / 0 | automate | low | A classic augmentation. |
| Calm an angry customer whose order failed twice | 0 / 3 / 2 | protect | low | Emotional labour; customers often escalate to reach a human. |
| Decide whether to grant an exception refund | 1 / 1 / 2 | augment | contested | Policy plus judgment; rules may be codified, discretion is political. |
| Spot a pattern pointing to a product bug | 2 / 0 / 2 | rethink | medium | Analytics flags; humans connect it to cause. |
| Tag and route incoming tickets | 3 / 0 / 0 | automate | low | Highly automatable. |
Skills that may travel: De-escalation → Hospitality, healthcare front office; Product knowledge → Quality assurance, technical writing; Pattern spotting → Operations analysis. Access: Employer decisions dominate; individual agents rarely choose the tools or the metrics.
Bookkeeper / accounts assistant
Keeping books for small businesses, often several clients, handling GST filings and reconciliations.
Tasks for Bookkeeper / accounts assistant| Task | C / R / S | Model | Uncertainty | Note |
|---|
| Enter invoices and receipts | 3 / 0 / 1 | automate | low | OCR and automation take much of this. |
| Reconcile bank statements | 3 / 0 / 2 | rethink | low | Matching is automatable; unexplained entries need a person. |
| Prepare GST returns | 2 / 0 / 3 | rethink | low | Software helps; legal accountability stays human. |
| Explain cash-flow trouble to a shop owner | 1 / 3 / 2 | protect | medium | Advice delivered in a way the client accepts. |
| Spot signs of fraud or leakage | 2 / 1 / 3 | rethink | medium | Tools flag anomalies; context decides. |
| Chase clients for missing documents | 2 / 2 / 0 | protect | medium | Reminders automate; relationships get the papers. |
Skills that may travel: Accuracy and controls → Audit, compliance; Explaining money plainly → Financial literacy teaching; Small-business context → Advisory, business banking. Access: Clients' records are often on paper; tools assume digital-first businesses.
Junior software developer
Early-career engineer — one of the groups most visibly affected by AI coding tools in recent labour-market studies.
Tasks for Junior software developer| Task | C / R / S | Model | Uncertainty | Note |
|---|
| Write boilerplate and CRUD code | 3 / 0 / 1 | automate | low | Coding assistants are strong here. |
| Write unit tests | 3 / 0 / 1 | automate | low | Assistants draft tests; deciding what to test is the skill. |
| Debug a production incident | 2 / 1 / 3 | rethink | medium | Tools assist search; accountability and system knowledge matter. |
| Clarify requirements with a product manager | 0 / 2 / 2 | protect | medium | Ambiguity resolution. |
| Review AI-generated code for security flaws | 1 / 0 / 3 | augment | low | A newly important task. |
| Learn the codebase by doing small tickets | 2 / 1 / 1 | augment | contested | If AI does the small tickets, where does learning happen? Rethink the ladder. |
Skills that may travel: Systems thinking → Solutions architecture, operations; Code review → Security, quality engineering; Debugging under uncertainty → SRE, technical support leadership. Access: Entry-level hiring decisions are made by firms, not by individual juniors.
Logistics dispatcher
Coordinating deliveries, drivers and routes for a distributor or courier hub.
Tasks for Logistics dispatcher| Task | C / R / S | Model | Uncertainty | Note |
|---|
| Plan daily delivery routes | 3 / 0 / 1 | automate | low | Route optimisation software is mature. |
| Assign drivers to shifts | 2 / 2 / 2 | protect | contested | Algorithmic assignment affects livelihoods; fairness matters. |
| Handle a breakdown in the middle of a route | 1 / 2 / 2 | protect | contested | Improvisation with people on the phone. |
| Track and update shipment status | 3 / 0 / 0 | automate | low | Automated tracking. |
| Settle disputes between drivers and shopkeepers | 0 / 3 / 2 | protect | low | Local relationships. |
| Forecast weekly volume | 3 / 0 / 2 | rethink | low | Forecasting tools help; the dispatcher knows the festival week. |
Skills that may travel: Real-time coordination → Event operations, emergency management; Local knowledge → Field sales, community programmes; Fair allocation → Workforce planning. Access: Algorithmic management can shift risk onto drivers; data quality varies.
Paralegal / legal assistant
Supporting lawyers with research, drafting and document management.
Tasks for Paralegal / legal assistant| Task | C / R / S | Model | Uncertainty | Note |
|---|
| Summarise case documents | 3 / 0 / 2 | rethink | low | Summaries are fast; omissions can be costly. |
| Search precedents | 2 / 0 / 3 | rethink | low | Legal AI tools can fabricate citations; verification is non-negotiable. |
| Draft standard agreements | 3 / 0 / 2 | rethink | low | Templates plus review. |
| Interview a client about what happened | 0 / 3 / 3 | protect | low | Trust, disclosure and confidentiality. |
| Manage filing deadlines | 2 / 0 / 3 | rethink | low | Automated calendars help; missed deadlines are owned by people. |
| Check a contract for jurisdiction-specific risk | 1 / 0 / 3 | augment | low | Judgment and context. |
Skills that may travel: Careful reading → Compliance, editorial, research; Confidential handling → Investigations, HR; Procedural knowledge → Court administration, legal-aid work. Access: Client confidentiality rules limit tool use; legal-aid settings have fewer resources.