Enter information into databases or software programs
Most of the output can be produced by software today.
Work that already happens inside a computer is the easiest to hand over, because the agent and the worker are operating in the same place. The constraint is permissions rather than capability: the agent needs its own scoped access, not a borrowed password.
| How automatable | Mostly automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Work done in software |
| Jobs that do it | 25 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Tools and auth, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Working with Computers (4.A.3.b.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 25 occupations that perform it.
- Locate and record data on sales of comparable property using specialized software, internet searches, or personal records.
- Enter or retrieve information from structural databases, protein sequence motif databases, mutation databases, genomic databases or gene expression databases.
- Enter information into computerized court calendar, filing, or case management systems.
- Enter into record-keeping systems appropriate data needed to create new title records or to update existing ones.
- Enter information about museum collections into computer databases.
- Record symbols on computer storage media and use computer aided transcription to translate and display them as text.
- Enter prescription information into computer databases.
- Give buyers virtual tours of properties in which they are interested, using computers.
- Update directory information.
- Establish new computer accounts.
- Process paperwork for new employees and enter employee information into the payroll system.
- Enter customers' transactions into computers to record transactions and issue computer-generated receipts.
- Input data, such as file numbers, new or updated information, or document information codes into computer systems to support document and information retrieval.
- Enter and update patrons' records on computers.
- Compile information about new accounts, enter account information into computers, and file related forms or other documents.
- Enter shipping information into a computer by hand or by a hand-held scanner that reads bar codes on goods.
- Enter, update, and retrieve information from teletype networks and computerized data systems regarding such things as wanted persons, stolen property, vehicle registration, and stolen vehicles.
- Read electric, gas, water, or steam consumption meters and enter data in route books or hand-held computers.
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 work done in software, and what it costs.
Work already inside a computer needs scoped access, not a new product, so start with the assistant you are already paying for. n8n is free if you host it yourself and is the cheapest way to leave something running unattended.
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
Step-by-step workflows that name this activity, with the prompts to paste and what to keep for yourself.
Others for work done in software
Who does this work
25 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Appraisers of Personal and Business Property
- Bioinformatics Technicians
- Cargo and Freight Agents
- Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners
- Data Entry Keyers
- Desktop Publishers
- File Clerks
- Gambling Cage Workers
- Insurance Claims and Policy Processing Clerks
- Judicial Law Clerks
- Library Assistants, Clerical
- Meter Readers, Utilities
- Museum Technicians and Conservators
- New Accounts Clerks
- Payroll and Timekeeping Clerks
- Pharmacy Technicians
- Postal Service Mail Carriers
- Public Safety Telecommunicators
- Real Estate Brokers
- Secretaries and Administrative Assistants, Except Legal, Medical, and Executive
- Statistical Assistants
- Telephone Operators
- Tellers
- Title Examiners, Abstractors, and Searchers
- Word Processors and Typists
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Process digital or online data”. 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.