What the 70.1% figure really means

Where the number comes from

In Anthropic's data, Claude is already used for 70.1% of the core tasks of customer service representatives. The figure comes from a study by economists Maxim Massenkoff and Peter McCrory, Labor market impacts of AI, published on 5 March 2026, in its Figure 3, "Most exposed occupations".

The study measured "observed exposure": which tasks Claude is actually used for in real work, not what AI could do in theory. The two are far apart. AI could perform 94% of tasks in computer and math jobs in theory, but covers about a third of them in practice today.

Support is near the top. The decimals come from Figure 3. The article's text rounds them, to 75% for programmers and 67% for data entry.

Tasks, not jobs

"Covers a task" means AI is being used for that task, not that the job disappears. The tool does part of the work. You finish it, check it, and answer for it.

The study lists the leading task for customer service representatives as "Confer with customers to provide info, take orders, handle complaints". AI helps with parts of that, like drafting replies and answering simple questions. People still handle the rest and check what the AI writes.

Here is the figure explained in three sentences:

AI is used for 70.1% of the core tasks of customer service representatives, based on what people actually use it for at work. That tells us where AI is used, not where jobs are gone. Judgment, exceptions and owning the outcome still stay with people.

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