The specialty exposure map
Estimated AI-driven income exposure by specialty, scored 1 (protected) to 5 (exposed). Higher always means more exposed. Search, filter, and sort all 97 specialties. Tap any row for the components and the key drivers. A few heterogeneous specialties also carry a range which can be further explored.
A national estimate for exposure, not individual career advice. A given job can sit well off its specialty’s central score — these are whole specialty-level estimates, not practice-specific assessment. Remember, this is to get you thinking. Forecasts of the market or for an economic upheaval are rarely correct, but with this you can at least check the temperature.
How to read the scores
Each specialty is scored on five map components, then averaged into a composite. The specialty map combines a substitution score with four of the book’s five income inputs: demand, referral, supply, and reimbursement. Time — the fifth income input — is treated separately in Chapters 6 and 7 of the companion The Income Varible book and is not included in this specialty-level score. Every component is written so that 5 means greater exposure:
Sub — substitution: can the core task be standardized and automated. Dem — demand: can demand for the work itself be erased. Ref — referral: is volume gatekept by referrers who can redirect it. Sup — supply: can AI, workflow redesign, or task-shifting expand the effective supply of people or systems able to perform the work. Rmb — reimbursement: can policy, payment redesign, or AI-enabled efficiency reduce what is paid for the work or shift the payment elsewhere.
Rows marked ◌ are provisional: recently added and pending validation. These specialties weren't included in the original research for the book. Heterogeneous specialties (for example diagnostic versus interventional practice) span a range. Where a row carries a shaded band, the band is that specialty’s range, the dot is the central estimate, and opening the row names what kind of job sits at each end. Rows without a band show the central estimate alone; ranges are authored one specialty at a time and are as provisional as everything else here. Even where no band is shown, read the central score as the middle of a practice-dependent range.
If you find your specialty and your first instinct is that I got it wrong, good. I probably did. That instinct is the map working; open the row and argue with the assumptions.
Companion to The Income Variable, Chapter 5. The print map (appendix) shows the central estimates as of press time; this live version is updated periodically. National estimates for orientation, not individual career advice.