Provide information to the general public
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 | 10 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Vertical agents, Builders |
| O*NET activity | Communicating with People Outside the Organization (4.A.4.a.3) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 10 occupations that perform it.
- Provide information to the public by leading workshops and training programs and by developing educational materials.
- Answer questions from the public and media.
- Provide information from the institution's holdings to other curators and to the public.
- Answer routine telephone or in-person reference inquiries, referring patrons to librarians for further assistance, when necessary.
- Provide transcripts of proceedings upon request of judges, lawyers, or the public.
- Assist customers by answering simple questions, locating items, or referring them to the pharmacist for medication information.
- Inform drivers of detour routes through construction sites.
- Direct passengers to areas where they can pick up their baggage after screening is complete.
- Respond to requests for information from the public, other municipalities, state officials, or state and federal legislative offices.
- Provide traffic information, such as road conditions, to the public.
- Provide directions and respond to passenger inquiries.
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
10 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
- Atmospheric, Earth, Marine, and Space Sciences Teachers, Postsecondary
- Court Reporters and Simultaneous Captioners
- Court, Municipal, and License Clerks
- Crossing Guards and Flaggers
- Curators
- Forestry and Conservation Science Teachers, Postsecondary
- Library Technicians
- Pharmacy Technicians
- Traffic Technicians
- Transportation Security Screeners
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Provide information or assistance to the public”. 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.