Collect information from people through observation, interviews, or surveys
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
An agent can find, read and summarise the sources this work depends on, and it can cover far more of them than a person would ever open. What it does not do is decide which sources deserve trust, or what the findings mean for your situation.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Research and retrieval work |
| Jobs that do it | 17 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Web, data and docs, Generalist agents |
| O*NET activity | Getting Information (4.A.1.a.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 17 occupations that perform it.
- Collect data through surveys or experimentation.
- Interview specialists in desired fields to obtain and develop data for park information programs.
- Visit suppliers of materials or users of products to gather specific information.
- Conduct research to gather information about survey topics.
- Observe and interview workers to obtain information about the physical, mental, and educational requirements of jobs, as well as information about aspects such as job satisfaction.
- Collect information about individuals or clients, using interviews, case histories, observational techniques, and other assessment methods.
- Assess an individual child's needs, limitations, and potential, using observation, review of school records, and consultation with parents and school personnel.
- Interview patients to obtain comprehensive medical histories.
- Collect data about the attitudes, values, and behaviors of people in groups, using observation, interviews, and review of documents.
- Conduct interviews, surveys and site inspections concerning factors that affect land usage, such as zoning, traffic flow and housing.
- Collect information and make judgments through observation, interviews, and review of documents.
- Interview people to gather information about historical events and to record oral histories.
- Interview individuals, and research public databases in order to obtain information.
- Obtain informed consent of research subjects or their guardians.
- Perform on-site field work which may involve interviewing people, inspecting and identifying artifacts, note-taking, viewing sites and collections, and repainting exhibition spaces.
- Conduct interviews to arrange for the preparation of obituary notices, to assist with the selection of caskets or urns, and to determine the location and time of burials or cremations.
- Conduct surveys and collect data, using methods such as interviews, questionnaires, focus groups, market analysis surveys, public opinion polls, literature reviews, and file reviews.
- Study consumers' reactions to new products and package designs, and to advertising efforts, using surveys and tests.
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 research and retrieval work, and what it costs.
Research is the one shape of work that needs no integration at all, so a single $20 assistant with browsing is the whole stack. Add a crawler only once you are pulling hundreds of pages on a schedule rather than reading a few.
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.
Generalist agents
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
Step-by-step workflows that name this activity, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Others for research and retrieval work
Who does this work
17 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Anthropologists and Archeologists
- Biostatisticians
- Clinical and Counseling Psychologists
- Clinical Neuropsychologists
- Embalmers
- Geological Technicians, Except Hydrologic Technicians
- Historians
- Industrial-Organizational Psychologists
- Materials Scientists
- Museum Technicians and Conservators
- Neuropsychologists
- Park Naturalists
- School Psychologists
- Social Science Research Assistants
- Sociologists
- Survey Researchers
- Urban and Regional Planners
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Collect information about patients or clients”. In practice they tend to be done by the same person, in the same sitting.
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.