Professional service jobs exist at the high end of the skill ladder; thus, some have assumed that highly trained professional workers are relatively immune to being replaced by automation. However, this assumption is a bit dubious because automation does not occur at the job level but rather at the task level, and some tasks within a professional job might be highly susceptible to automation disruption. This research builds on prior research by (1) empirically testing a model for automation of professional services and (2) developing a professional task-automation framework that shows how individual tasks within a given job can be enhanced or disrupted by automation in very different ways. Some tasks are augmented by automation and remain in the purview of professionally trained workers. Other tasks are deskilled by automation, allowing the tasks to be transferred to lower cost workers (who are aided by automation). Other tasks are moved directly to customers through self-service technologies, reducing or eliminating the need to interact with professionals or other workers. Finally, some professional tasks are centralized, which
leverages professional workers’ distinctive expertise. Our framework shows precipitating conditions for each task-automation strategy and outlines logic for reconfiguring tasks within professional service systems.

Digital technology has enabled significant productivity gains in many industries. Manufacturers have benefited from robotics, and service businesses have benefited from self-service technologies. An area that has not seen significant productivity gains is professional services, such as healthcare, consulting, legal services, and higher education. Despite the introduction of new technologies, professional services continue to be labor intensive with high labor costs. In 2021, Sampson published an empirically-based framework suggesting that emerging technologies would allow professional services to improve productivity by delegating some tasks to semiprofessional workers, outsourcing some tasks to remote professionals, and automating some tasks through self-service technologies. The underlying theory was that this restructuring hinges on the creative and interpersonal skill requirements of various tasks. Our research builds on Sampson’s framework in two ways. First, we validate the framework with additional empirical data. Second, we provide evidence that reengineering will likely result in major cost savings but only a minor decrease in quality (measured by task failure and rework). This evidence comes from a simulation model that was parameterized by empirical data. Although there is more to be studied in this area, these current findings suggest great opportunities for reengineering professional services through increased delegation, outsourcing, and automation.