Career Explorer Healthcare (clinical)
Grows with AI
Physical therapists
Assess, plan, organize, and participate in rehabilitative programs that improve mobility, relieve pain, increase strength, and improve or correct disabling conditions resulting from disease or injury.
More resilient than most: more resilient than 76% 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 +11.9% by 2035, much faster than average. The work leans on emotional intelligence and ethical judgement.
AI can help with many of the tasks, and demand is still growing. Being fluent with AI is the edge here.
- Median pay (2025)
- $102,760
- Job growth to 2035
- +11.9%
- Openings a year
- 13,400
- People doing it (2025)
- 284,000
- Usual route in
- Doctorate or professional degree
Where people already use AI for this work
- Explain medical information to patients or family members
- Assist others to access additional services or resources
- Perform administrative or clerical activities
From Microsoft Research, Working with AI (2025).
Work AI rarely helps with
- Maintain health or medical records
- Examine people or animals to assess health conditions or physical characteristics
- Develop patient or client care or treatment plans
What the work looks like
- Plan, prepare, or carry out individually designed programs of physical treatment to maintain, improve, or restore physical functioning, alleviate pain, or prevent physical dysfunction in patients.
- Perform and document an initial exam, evaluating data to identify problems and determine a diagnosis prior to intervention.
- Record prognosis, treatment, response, and progress in patient's chart or enter information into computer.
- Instruct patient and family in treatment procedures to be continued at home.
- Evaluate effects of treatment at various stages and adjust treatments to achieve maximum benefit.
From O*NET 31.0, US Department of Labor.
What the Bureau of Labor Statistics expects
- More of these jobs, as growing demand for inpatient rehabilitation services increases demand for physical therapists.
- Fewer of these jobs, as physical therapist assistants are increasingly utilized, relative to physical therapists, to provide physical therapy services.
Careers using similar strengths, with a stronger outlook
- Athletic trainersGrows with AI, Index 81, +12.7%
- Nurse anesthetistsHuman edge, growing, Index 95, +9.7%
- AnesthesiologistsHuman edge, growing, Index 85, +3.6%
- Nurse midwivesGrows with AI, Index 81, +11.5%
Also known as: Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT), Home Care Physical Therapist (Home Care PT), Inpatient Physical Therapist (Inpatient PT), Pediatric Physical Therapist (Pediatric PT), Acute Care PT (Acute Care Physical Therapist), Outpatient Physical Therapist (Outpatient PT), Registered Physical Therapist (RPT), Therapist.
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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.