Collaborate on research activities with scientists or technical specialists
Part of the output can be produced by software today.
Software drafts well and sends at volume, and vertical support agents now resolve a large share of inbound questions end to end. What does not transfer is the relationship, and the judgment about when a message should not be sent at all.
| How automatable | Partly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Routine communication and explanation |
| Jobs that do it | 15 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Vertical agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates (4.A.4.a.2) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 15 occupations that perform it.
- Provide assistance to internal or external auditors in compliance reviews.
- Participate in multidisciplinary projects in areas such as virtual reality, human-computer interaction, or robotics.
- Mentor others on mathematical techniques.
- Collaborate with biologists and other professionals to conduct appropriate genetic and biochemical analyses.
- Collaborate with other astronomers to carry out research projects.
- Collaborate with other scientists in the design, development, and testing of experimental, industrial, or medical equipment, instrumentation, and procedures.
- Consult with other offices, agencies, professionals, or researchers regarding the use and interpretation of climatological information for weather predictions and warnings.
- Confer with scientists or engineers to conduct analyses of research projects, interpret test results, or develop nonstandard tests.
- Collaborate with other researchers in the planning, implementation, and evaluation of surveys.
- Provide technical support and services for scientists and engineers working in fields such as agriculture, environmental science, resource management, biology, and health sciences.
- Provide technical support or assistance to chemists or engineers.
- Collaborate with hydrogeologists to evaluate groundwater or well circulation.
- Confer with ballistics, fingerprinting, handwriting, documents, electronics, medical, chemical, or metallurgical experts concerning evidence and its interpretation.
- Develop radiation treatment plans in consultation with members of the radiation oncology team.
- Assist speech-language pathologists in the conduct of speech-language research projects.
What we would actually use
One recommendation rather than a shortlist, because a shortlist is just your problem handed back. This is what we would buy for routine communication and explanation, and what it costs.
Drafting replies costs nothing beyond the assistant you already pay for. Only move to a support agent billed per resolution once the inbound volume is large enough that the per-resolution price beats the hour it takes you.
Chosen for the cheapest thing that does the job, not the best funded. Nothing on this site is sponsored, and the full landscape is there when you want to disagree with us.
The rest of the category
Context, not alternatives to weigh up. We name the layer rather than promise a named product does your specific task.
Matched from the kind of work, not from vendor marketing. Check any of them can reach the system your records actually live in — that connection, not the model, is where these projects stall.
How people actually do it
No workflow names this activity yet, but these automate the same kind of work, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Who does this work
15 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Astronomers
- Atmospheric and Space Scientists
- Biological Technicians
- Chemical Technicians
- Chemists
- Compliance Managers
- Computer and Information Research Scientists
- Forensic Science Technicians
- Geneticists
- Geological Technicians, Except Hydrologic Technicians
- Mathematicians
- Medical Dosimetrists
- Physicists
- Speech-Language Pathology Assistants
- Survey Researchers
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Assist scientists, scholars, or technical specialists with projects or research”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
| Activity | Jobs |
|---|---|
| Assist engineers or scientists with research | 7 |
| Assist other educational professionals with projects or research | 3 |
Method. The activity, its taxonomy placement and the occupations that perform it come straight from the public-domain O*NET 30.3 database. The automatability band is ours: we map each of O*NET’s 41 generalized work activities to how much of its output current software can produce, assuming a person still reviews and owns the result. It is a coarse three-way judgment on purpose. A precise-looking percentage here would be invented.