Can Agents Work?

Jobs / Data and analytics / 15-2051.00

Data Scientists

Develop and implement a set of techniques or analytics applications to transform raw data into meaningful information using data-oriented programming languages and visualization software. Apply data mining, data modeling, natural language processing, and machine learning to extract and analyze information from large structured and unstructured datasets. Visualize, interpret, and report data findings. May create dynamic data reports.

US jobs
262,440
Median wage
$120,230 a year
Job family
Data and analytics

Can agents do the work of data scientists?

We read the evidence at the level of the job family, Data and analytics:

  • Task levelPartialOne direct benchmark, near its ceiling. On Spider 2.0-Snow, which asks for multi-step SQL against large business databases, the top agent reaches 96.7% execution accuracy, but the entry names no model. Adjacent spreadsheet tasks agree (83.1% on SpreadsheetBench). No benchmark in our collection tests open-ended analysis, where the right question is itself unclear.
  • Project levelPartialMixed, adjacent evidence. On MLE-bench, 75 offline Kaggle competitions, the best agent wins a medal in 64.4% of competitions. The Remote Labor Index includes data analysis projects; across all its projects, the best agent completed 15.8% to a standard a client would accept.

Benchmarks for this occupation

  • MLE-benchby OpenAIProject level · Any medal (%)
    64.4%Famou-Agent 2.0 (Gemini-3-Pro-Preview) · 23 Feb 2026
    Strong
  • Spider 2.0by HKU and Salesforce AI ResearchTask level · Execution accuracy (Spider 2.0-Snow)
    96.7%Genloop's Sentinel Agent v2 Pro · 1 Mar 2026
    Saturated

Benchmarks for the job family

These cover work in data and analytics, not always this occupation's tasks.

Typical tasks

From O*NET 31.0. Core tasks first. Few of these tasks have a benchmark today.

  • Analyze, manipulate, or process large sets of data using statistical software.
  • Create graphs, charts, or other visualizations to convey the results of data analysis using specialized software.
  • Test, validate, and reformulate models to ensure accurate prediction of outcomes of interest.
  • Deliver oral or written presentations of the results of mathematical modeling and data analysis to management or other end users.
  • Recommend data-driven solutions to key stakeholders.
  • Identify business problems or management objectives that can be addressed through data analysis.
  • Compare models using statistical performance metrics, such as loss functions or proportion of explained variance.
  • Clean and manipulate raw data using statistical software.
  • Identify solutions to business problems, such as budgeting, staffing, and marketing decisions, using the results of data analysis.
  • Apply feature selection algorithms to models predicting outcomes of interest, such as sales, attrition, and healthcare use.
  • Identify relationships and trends or any factors that could affect the results of research.
  • Write new functions or applications in programming languages to conduct analyses.
Other job titles for this occupation (29)

Analytics Consultant · Applied Scientist · Data Analyst · Data Analytic Scientist · Data Analytics Scientist · Data Analytics Specialist · Data Architect · Data Consultant · Data Economist · Data Engineer · Data Management Scientist · Data Mining Analyst · Data Modeler · Data Quality Analyst · Data Science Engineer · Data Science Intern · Data Specialist · Machine Learning Data Scientist · Machine Learning Engineer · Machine Learning Scientist · Machine Learning Software Engineer · Marketing Data Scientist · Psychometric Consultant · Quantitative Methodologist · Quantitative Researcher · Research Analyst · Research Scientist · Statistical Analyst · Statistical Consultant