Cooks, Private Household

Prepare meals in private homes. Includes personal chefs.

The occupation "Cooks, Private Household" has a moderate automation risk of 36.0%, based on a base risk assessment of 36.5%. This relatively moderate risk indicates that while several components of the job can potentially be automated, a significant portion still relies on human skills that current technology struggles to replicate. A key factor behind the automation risk is the repetitive and procedural nature of many culinary tasks. For instance, actions such as peeling, washing, trimming, and cooking vegetables and meats, as well as baking breads and pastries, constitute routine food preparation steps that can be handled efficiently by robots and kitchen automation systems. Similarly, cooling, packaging, labeling, and freezing foods for later consumption—and providing instructions for reheating—are systematic processes well-suited for automation. Planning menus according to employers' specific needs and dietary restrictions also ranks high among automatable tasks. While this might seem to necessitate creative thinking, algorithmic systems can draw on vast recipe databases, nutrition guidelines, and user preferences to generate tailored menus. Advances in AI-driven meal planning and dietary management further enable machines to create optimized eating schedules and meal plans with minimal human intervention. These developments contribute notably to the overall automation risk, as they directly address some of the more complex yet rule-bound aspects of the role. However, the occupation retains a strong component of resistance to automation due to its interpersonal and creative demands. Tasks like traveling with employers to vacation homes to provide meal preparation at various locations require flexibility, adaptability, and direct physical presence—qualities that robots currently lack. Serving meals and snacks to employing families and their guests demands not just manual dexterity but also a level of hospitality, discretion, and situational responsiveness that is difficult to replicate with machines. Perhaps most significantly, the ability to create and explore new cuisines reflects originality—a skill with only a 3.0–3.1% automation risk—which remains a considerable bottleneck for AI technologies. The combination of originality and social skills ensures that while some routine tasks in the private household cooking sector may succumb to automation, the core value of the occupation is likely to endure.