Career Explorer Arts, media and sport
Changing shape
Court reporters and simultaneous captioners
Use verbatim methods and equipment to capture, store, retrieve, and transcribe pretrial and trial proceedings or other information. Includes stenocaptioners who operate computerized stenographic captioning equipment to provide captions of live or prerecorded broadcasts for hearing-impaired viewers.
Among the careers AI is changing fastest: more resilient than 3% of the 831 careers we score. AI exposure is very high (the Bureau of Labor Statistics rates it very high), and US jobs are projected to change by -0.1% by 2035, expected to shrink.
AI can do many of the tasks, and hiring is expected to grow slower than average or to shrink. The job is likely to change, so build the human parts of it.
- Median pay (2025)
- $72,420
- Job growth to 2035
- -0.1%
- Openings a year
- 1,800
- People doing it (2025)
- 19,900
- Usual route in
- College certificate, then short on-the-job training
Where people already use AI for this work
- Examine materials or documentation for accuracy or compliance
- Provide information or assistance to the public
- Perform administrative or clerical activities
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Record information about legal matters
- Prepare legal or regulatory documents
- Discuss legal matters with clients, disputants, or legal professionals or staff
What the work looks like
- Provide transcripts of proceedings upon request of judges, lawyers, or the public.
- Record symbols on computer storage media and use computer aided transcription to translate and display them as text.
- Record verbatim proceedings of courts, legislative assemblies, committee meetings, and other proceedings, using computerized recording equipment, electronic stenograph machines, or stenomasks.
- Record depositions and other proceedings for attorneys.
- Ask speakers to clarify inaudible statements.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- Fewer of these jobs, as simultaneous captioning is increasingly done by artificial intelligence (AI), especially for video content.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Food cooking machine operators and tendersHuman edge, steady, Index 51, -0.3%
- Crushing, grinding, and polishing machine setters, operators, and tendersHuman edge, steady, Index 45, -1.7%
- Cutting, punching, and press machine setters, operators, and tenders, metal and plasticHuman edge, steady, Index 36, -10.5%
- Foundry mold and coremakersHuman edge, steady, Index 43, -23.0%
Also known as: Certified Shorthand Reporter (CSR), Court Reporter, Court Stenographer, Official Court Reporter, Captioner, Court Recorder, Deposition Reporter, Digital Court Reporter.
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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.