AI Automation Index

Will AI Replace Gem and Diamond Workers?

Task-level automation exposure for Gem and Diamond Workers: 22 O*NET tasks scored against their work activities, plus the simulator.

E-E-A-T Verified

Developed & audited by Gini Loh

Automation Exposure

24% weighted task index

22 of 22 tasks scored

Median Salary

$52,540 / year

BLS OEWS, May 2025 — this exact occupation

Employment Level

Low

22,440 people hold this job — size, not growth

Projected 2025–35

-3.2% employment change

3,700 openings a year · BLS line item

Pay by state

BLS OEWS publishes 47 state estimates for this occupation. Each is its own survey estimate, not the national median adjusted for local prices.

$35,950 – $69,800

Highest medians

Connecticut $69,800

Virginia $61,940

New York $61,720

California $60,790

South Carolina $60,380

Lowest medians

Arkansas $35,950

Montana $37,580

Utah $39,860

Nevada $40,510

Oklahoma $41,720

State figures come from the 51-9071 row in the May 2025 state panel. States where the estimate was suppressed or too small to publish are absent.

What the score is made of

Each task is mapped to its work activities, scored for AI automation potential, and weighted by how important those activities are to the job. These are the components.

Automation potential 24%

Importance-weighted mean of the scored tasks. This is the headline index.

Physical work 45%

Share of weighted tasks in hands-on or machine-operating work activities.

Judgment & influence 26%

Share in analysis, decisions, teaching, directing, advising, or caring for others.

Routine administration 6%

Share in documenting, recording, and administrative activities.

Rewritten by O*NET 0%

Share of weighted tasks O*NET rewrote in a recent update. Reported, not folded into the score.

Consequence of error 3/100 Low

O*NET's own rating of how serious an uncorrectable mistake would be here — respondents, not us. Deliberately not in the index: the score measures what AI can do with the task content, and multiplying it by stakes would be our judgment dressed as data.

Constituent Task Mix

22 tasks for this occupation, weighted by work-activity importance. Shares below are of total task weight, not task count.

High exposure (≥ 60% of the task is automatable) 12%

2 tasks

Medium exposure (≥ 35%) 12%

2 tasks

Low exposure (below 35%) 76%

18 tasks

How would you survive?

Move your week away from the high-exposure tasks and toward the ones that need judgment. The simulator recalculates the index as you shift the mix.

Simulate Upskilling →

Emerging & rewritten tasks

Tasks O*NET added or rewrote for this occupation in its recent updates (05/2025 – 08/2026), with who proposed them. Additions are not in the scored task inventory — they are new work O*NET is still measuring, so they appear here and nowhere in the index. A Revision replaces a task that is scored, which is why only those move the "Rewritten by O*NET" share.

New 08/2026 · Incumbent

Buy and sell diamonds and diamond jewelry for clients.

Constituent Tasks

#15093 · Core · 45% automatable

Assign polish, symmetry, and clarity grades to stones, according to established grading systems.

visual inspection — Material quality often needs hands-on or visual inspection

Evaluate quality of materials or products.

#15096 · Core · 50% automatable

Identify and document stones' clarity characteristics, using plot diagrams.

data analysis — Record production data into structured logs

Examine physical characteristics of gemstones or precious metals. Record operational or production data.

#15094 · Core · 70% automatable

Estimate wholesale and retail value of gems, following pricing guides, market fluctuations, and other relevant economic factors.

decision support — Valuation aided; human owns final value judgment

Determine the value of goods or services.

#15092 · Core · 18% automatable

Examine gems during processing to ensure accuracy of angles and positions of cuts or bores, using magnifying glasses, loupes, or shadowgraphs.

visual inspection — Gemstone grading requires hands-on sensory inspection

Examine physical characteristics of gemstones or precious metals.

#15098 · Core · 18% automatable

Examine diamonds or gems to ascertain the shape, cut, and width of cut stones, or to select the cuts that will result in the biggest, best quality stones.

visual inspection — Gemstone grading requires hands-on sensory inspection

Examine physical characteristics of gemstones or precious metals.

#15095 · Core · 18% automatable

Examine gem surfaces and internal structures, using polariscopes, refractometers, microscopes, and other optical instruments, to differentiate between stones, to identify rare specimens, or to detect flaws, defects, or peculiarities affecting gem values.

visual inspection — Gemstone grading requires hands-on sensory inspection

Examine physical characteristics of gemstones or precious metals.

#15097 · Core · 68% automatable

Advise customers and others on the best use of gems to create attractive jewelry items.

decision support — Generates improvement options; human tailors and owns

Advise others on ways to improve processes or products.

#15103 · Core · 13% automatable

Locate and mark drilling or cutting positions on stones or dies, using diamond chips and power hand tools.

physical manipulation — Marking reference points requires hands-on measurement

Measure materials to mark reference points, cutting lines, or other indicators. Position equipment using hand tools, power tools, or heavy equipment. Position hand tools.

#15102 · Core · 5% automatable

Secure gems or diamonds in holders, chucks, dops, lapidary sticks, or blocks for cutting, polishing, grinding, drilling, or shaping.

physical manipulation — Mounting workpieces is physical loading

Mount materials or workpieces onto production equipment.

#15107 · Core · 26% automatable

Select shaping wheels for tasks, and mix and apply abrasives, bort, or polishing compounds.

decision support — Equipment selection against specs; human verifies fit

Select production equipment according to product specifications. Mix substances to create chemical solutions. Apply solutions to production equipment.

#15106 · Supplemental · 28% automatable

Measure sizes of stones' bore holes and cuts to ensure adherence to specifications, using precision measuring instruments.

physical manipulation — Hands-on dimensional measurement of workpieces

Measure dimensions of completed products or workpieces to verify conformance to specifications.

#15101 · Supplemental · 10% automatable

Sort rough diamonds into categories based on shape, size, color, and quality.

physical manipulation — Physical product sorting needs manipulation in warehouse

Sort materials or products for processing, storing, shipping, or grading.

#15104 · Supplemental · 7% automatable

Place stones in clamps on polishing machines and polish facets of stones, using felt-covered or canvas-covered polishing wheels and polishing compounds such as tripoli and rouge.

physical manipulation — Manual polishing of workpieces requires dexterity

Position raw materials on processing or production equipment. Polish materials, workpieces, or finished products.

#15100 · Supplemental · 8% automatable

Hold stones, gems, dies, or styluses against rotating plates, wheels, saws, or slitters to cut, shape, slit, grind, or polish them.

physical manipulation — Grinding requires hands-on control and feel

Maneuver workpieces in equipment during production. Operate grinding equipment.

#15110 · Supplemental · 10% automatable

Replace, true, and sharpen blades, drills, and plates.

physical manipulation — Hands-on removal and fitting of worn components

Replace worn equipment components. Replace worn, damaged, or defective mechanical parts. Sharpen cutting or grinding tools.

#15111 · Supplemental · 10% automatable

Secure stones in metal mountings, using solder.

physical manipulation — Soldering requires fine manual dexterity

Solder parts or workpieces. Solder parts or connections between parts.

#15099 · Supplemental · 18% automatable

Immerse stones in prescribed chemical solutions to determine specific gravities and key properties of gemstones or substitutes.

visual inspection — Gemstone grading requires hands-on sensory inspection

Examine physical characteristics of gemstones or precious metals.

#15113 · Supplemental · 10% automatable

Regrind drill points, and advance drill cutting points according to specifications for channel depths and shapes.

physical manipulation — Grinding requires hands-on control and feel

Cut materials according to specifications or needs. Operate grinding equipment.

#15108 · Supplemental · 6% automatable

Split gems along pre-marked lines to remove imperfections, using blades and jewelers' hammers.

physical manipulation — Physical cutting to specifications

Shape glass or similar materials. Cut materials according to specifications or needs. Position hand tools.

#15105 · Supplemental · 11% automatable

Lap girdles on rough diamonds, using diamond girdling lathes.

physical manipulation — Machine tool operation is hands-on skilled work

Cut materials according to specifications or needs. Fabricate products or components using machine tools. Operate grinding equipment.

#15112 · Supplemental · 8% automatable

Dismantle lapping, boring, cutting, polishing, and shaping equipment and machinery to clean and lubricate it.

physical manipulation — Disassembly requires hands-on tool use

Disassemble equipment for maintenance or repair.

#15109 · Supplemental · 10% automatable

Regulate the speed of revolutions and reciprocating actions of drilling mechanisms.

physical manipulation — Drilling equipment operated by hand on site

Operate drilling equipment.

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Community Sentiment

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Method

How this was scored

1. Tasks. O*NET task statements for this occupation, from a release whose newest record is dated 08/2026.
2. Work activities. Each task maps to 1–5 Detailed Work Activities; each activity belongs to one of 41 Generalized Work Activities that O*NET rates for importance (1–5) in this occupation.
3. Automation potential. Every work activity carries one score for how far current AI can perform it end-to-end. Tasks inherit the mean of their activities.
4. Weighting. Task weight = 0.35 + 0.65 × (importance − 1)/4, scaled by how often the task is performed and by 0.7 for Supplemental tasks. Importance is the task's own O*NET rating where it exists (18,369 of 18,838 tasks); the rest inherit their work activities' importance. The index is the weighted mean.

Check: across the 910 occupations where O*NET also rates how far machine speed sets the pace, this index moves opposite to it (Spearman ρ = -0.49). The more a job is paced by equipment, the less of its task content AI can address — the relationship you would expect if the scoring is working.

Sources · O*NET 31.0 (task records to 08/2026) · BLS OEWS May 2025 · BLS projections 2025-2035 · rubric v2.1 · tasks for O*NET, not a forecast

See the full method →

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