Career Explorer Arts, media and sport
Grows with AI
Audio and video technicians
Set up, maintain, and dismantle audio and video equipment, such as microphones, sound speakers, connecting wires and cables, sound and mixing boards, video cameras, video monitors and servers, and related electronic equipment for live or recorded events, such as concerts, meetings, conventions, presentations, podcasts, news conferences, and sporting events.
In the middle of the pack: more resilient than 45% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is moderate (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it high), and US jobs are projected to change by +3.9% by 2035, faster than average. The work leans on physical dexterity and creative vision.
AI can help with many of the tasks, and demand is still growing. Being fluent with AI is the edge here.
- Median pay (2025)
- $58,100
- Job growth to 2035
- +3.9%
- Openings a year
- 6,600
- People doing it (2025)
- 87,600
- Usual route in
- College certificate, then short on-the-job training
Where people already use AI for this work
- Maintain electronic, computer, or other technical equipment
- Set up equipment
- Operate communications equipment or systems
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Operate audiovisual or related equipment
- Direct organizational operations, activities, or procedures
- Alter audio or video recordings
What the work looks like
- Notify supervisors when major equipment repairs are needed.
- Diagnose and resolve media system problems.
- Direct and coordinate activities of assistants and other personnel during production.
- Compress, digitize, duplicate, and store audio and video data.
- Install, adjust, and operate electronic equipment to record, edit, and transmit radio and television programs, motion pictures, video conferencing, or multimedia presentations.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- Fewer of these jobs, as technologies such as digital audio workstations allow more artists to produce their own recordings, reducing demand for in-studio record production.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Model makers, woodHuman edge, steady, Index 62, -3.3%
- Dental laboratory techniciansHuman edge, steady, Index 64, -5.9%
- Agricultural techniciansGrows with AI, Index 66, +5.4%
- Furniture finishersHuman edge, steady, Index 65, -3.5%
Also known as: Audio Visual Specialist (AV Specialist), AV Tech (Audio Visual Technician), Media Technician, Operations Technician, Audio Technician, Stagehand, Video Technician.
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Sources: US Bureau of Labor Statistics Employment Projections 2025 to 2035; O*NET 31.0; Microsoft Research (2025); Anthropic Economic Index (2026); Eloundou and colleagues (Science, 2024); Felten, Raj and Seamans (2023). How we score. Updated 12 October 2026.