Jobs / Food service, cleaning, and personal care
Can agents do food service, cleaning, and personal care work?
Cook and serve food, clean buildings and grounds, and give personal care and service.
- US jobs
- 21,484,810 (13.8% of employment)
- Typical wage
- $36K a year (employment-weighted mean of occupation medians)
- Occupations
- 62 in O*NET 31.0
- Evidence
- 1 direct benchmark, 2 also relevant, 0 context only
The answer today
Not yetFirst measured since 24 Sep 2025.
Rule: Direct benchmarks exist, but agents complete less than 20% of their tasks.
The best direct evidence
- BEHAVIOR Challenge 2025 by Stanford University: 12.4% of tasks fully completed (Full task success rate) · Robot Learning Collective, 14 Nov 2025
Next step: Agents must complete 20% or more of the tasks (or projects) on a direct benchmark.
How much of the work is measured
9% of the work in this family is measured by direct benchmarks. Little of the work is measured (less than 20%). On 24 Sep 2025: 0%.
Work = the O*NET 31.0 work activities of the family's occupations, weighted by how important each task is and by US employment. A benchmark measures an activity when its tasks make the agent do it and its grading checks it. Method.
| Work activity (O*NET) | Share of the work | Direct benchmark |
|---|---|---|
| Clean tools, equipment, facilities, or work areas | 12.4% | Measured |
| Prepare foods or beverages | 11.1% | Measured |
| Provide food or beverage services | 7.1% | Not measured |
| Execute financial transactions | 5.1% | Not measured |
| Provide information to guests, clients, or customers | 4.3% | Not measured |
| Stock supplies or products | 4.2% | Measured |
| Dispose of waste or debris | 3.0% | Not measured |
| Move materials, equipment, or supplies | 2.6% | Measured |
| Direct organizational operations, activities, or procedures | 2.6% | Not measured |
| Communicate with others about operational plans or activities | 2.4% | Not measured |
Our reading
Agents do not yet complete 20% of the tasks on a direct benchmark. On Stanford's BEHAVIOR Challenge 2025, the best policy finishes 12.4% of 50 whole household chores in simulation (Q-score 0.2599 for partial progress). RoboChallenge Table30 gives context only: on this real-robot board, run by Dexmal with Hugging Face, Robotera's Era0 succeeds in 64.33% of rollouts over 30 staged tabletop tasks, but only about 8 of them are cleaning or food tasks. No direct benchmark measures serving food or drinks, handling payments, or personal care. A direct benchmark at 20% or more would move the family to some tasks.
Evidence: BEHAVIOR Challenge 2025, RoboChallenge Table30 by Dexmal, Hugging Face, and Stanford University. Written 24 Sep 2026.
Benchmarks for this work
Direct evidence
Work benchmarks mapped primary to this family. They set the step when they report how many tasks agents complete.
Also relevant
These benchmarks cover part of this family's work, or have no result yet. They do not set its step.
- 1735 EloDreamZero (dreaming_zebra) · 24 Sep 2026Unrated
Functions: Household choresRobot manipulationLong-horizon autonomy
What we do not know
- Benchmarks measure tasks, not whole jobs. A job is a bundle of tasks, judgment, and relationships.
- Capability is not adoption. A task that agents can do in a benchmark may still be done by people at work.
- Most results come from single runs. Reliability over many runs is often unknown.
Occupations in this family
Sorted by US employment (BLS OEWS May 2025). O*NET sub-occupations share the employment figure of their SOC group. Work measured = the share of the occupation's O*NET work that direct benchmarks test.
How to cite
Credit the original work first: the benchmarks listed on this page, and their institutions.
Then, if you used this page:
Can Agents Work. "Can agents do food service, cleaning, and personal care work?." https://canagentswork.com/jobs/food-cleaning-personal-care/ (accessed 2026-09-24). CC BY 4.0.@misc{caw-jobs-food-cleaning-personal-care,
title = {{Can agents do food service, cleaning, and personal care work?}},
author = {{Can Agents Work}},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {\url{https://canagentswork.com/jobs/food-cleaning-personal-care/}},
note = {Accessed 2026-09-24. CC BY 4.0}
}