Mercor estimates that 90% of American working hours are spent on tasks with little or no coverage from existing AI benchmarks, based on 29 benchmarks mapped to O*NET's 18,797 tasks.

90%

of American working hours spent on tasks with little or no coverage from existing AI benchmarks, Mercor estimates

Mercor estimates that 90% of American working hours are spent on tasks with little or no coverage from existing AI benchmarks, based on 29 benchmarks mapped to O*NET's 18,797 tasks.

Mercor counts a task as covered when at least 5 benchmark prompts map to it; 924 of the 18,797 tasks are. It calls the results provisional.

Source: A benchmark map of the US economy (opens in a new tab), The Benchmark Map; Methodology in brief. Verified October 2026.

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Sources for the figures above: Microsoft, MIMIC-IV-Ext-SDBench (PhysioNet, version 1.0.0) (opens in a new tab); OpenAI, API changelog (July 30, August 21 and September 29, 2026) (opens in a new tab); OpenAI, GPT-5.6 Luna model page (opens in a new tab); Max Woolf, OpenAI and Anthropic cut their LLM prices by up to 80% within a few months (October 25, 2026) (opens in a new tab); This healthcare AI use case will grow 320% by 2026, survey finds (opens in a new tab).

Related facts

Sources for the figures above: AI Gateway Production Index, October 2026 (opens in a new tab); FAR 52.204-30, Federal Acquisition Supply Chain Security Act Orders, Prohibition (Dec 2023) (opens in a new tab); This healthcare AI use case will grow 320% by 2026, survey finds (opens in a new tab).

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