Select materials or props
Little of this can be handed to software today.
Software can assemble the case and recommend an answer, and that is genuinely useful. The decision stays with a person because someone has to be accountable for it. Treating the recommendation as the decision is how automation projects fail.
| How automatable | Barely automatable |
|---|---|
| Kind of work | Judgment, authorisation and strategy |
| Jobs that do it | 12 occupations |
| Tool categories that apply | Generalist agents, Models and routing |
| O*NET activity | Making Decisions and Solving Problems (4.A.2.b.1) |
What this looks like on the job
Not our paraphrase. These are real task statements recorded against this activity, spread across the 12 occupations that perform it.
- Select materials for use based on strength, color, texture, balance, weight, size, malleability and other characteristics.
- Select materials and production techniques to be used for products.
- Select flora and foliage for arrangements, working with numerous combinations to synthesize and develop new creations.
- Select or design, and purchase furnishings, art work, and accessories.
- Select themes, lighting, colors, or props to be used.
- Select set props, such as furniture, pictures, lamps, and rugs.
- Identify and approve equipment and elements required for productions, such as scenery, lights, props, costumes, choreography, and music.
- Select, acquire, and maintain programs, music, films, and other needed materials and obtain legal clearances for their use as necessary.
- Select, acquire, store, and issue equipment and other materials as necessary.
- Prepare for recording sessions by performing such activities as selecting and setting up microphones.
- Select and assemble equipment and required background properties, according to subjects, materials, and conditions.
- Assemble studio sets and select and arrange cameras, film stock, audio, or lighting equipment to be used during filming.
- Select and purchase lumber and hardware necessary for set construction.
- Develop visual aids and charts for use in lectures or to present evidence in court.
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 judgment, authorisation and strategy, and what it costs.
There is nothing here worth buying beyond a good assistant. Software assembles the case and recommends an answer, which any $20 assistant already does; the decision is yours, and no product on this page changes that.
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
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
12 occupations in the O*NET database perform this activity. Each one has a full breakdown of its other tasks.
Work that goes with it
O*NET groups these under “Select materials or equipment for operations or projects”. 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.