‘Delighted to be wrong’: Sam Altman says AI may not trigger feared white-collar job apocalypse

Open AI CEO Sam Altman on Tuesday (May 26) said fears of an artificial intelligence-driven jobs collapse may have been overstated, admitting that his earlier predictions about large-scale losses of white-collar jobs have not unfolded as quickly as he once expected.

Speaking at a conference organised by the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney, Altman reflected on how his views on AI’s impact on employment have changed since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022.

“I’m delighted to be wrong about this,” Altman said. “I thought there would have been more impact on entry-level white-collar jobs being eliminated by now than has actually happened."

Altman said he had initially believed AI systems would rapidly replace a large number of routine office roles. However, over time, he realised that people continue to value direct human interaction more than many in the technology sector had anticipated.

Sharing a personal example, Altman said he once experimented with using AI to handle replies to Slack and email messages under the tag “this is Sam’s AI.” He later returned to responding to some messages himself.

“We really do care about people,” Altman said, adding that software still struggles to fully replicate human connection and communication.

According to Altman, AI is more likely to reshape work rather than completely eliminate the need for humans. He said people would continue playing important roles in creativity, communication, judgment, and emotional understanding even as AI systems become more advanced.

“I don’t think we’re going to have the kind of jobs apocalypse that some of the companies in our space advocate or talk about,” he said.

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Altman’s comments mark a softer tone compared with some of his earlier warnings about AI’s effect on employment. In a 2023 interview with The Atlantic, he said “jobs are definitely going to go away” as businesses increasingly adopted AI technologies, though he argued that better jobs would eventually emerge. Last year, he also told a Federal Reserve conference that “entire classes” of jobs could disappear.

His latest remarks come at a time when concerns over AI-led restructuring continue to grow across the global technology sector. Major companies have been increasing investments in AI infrastructure while simultaneously cutting jobs.

According to layoff tracker TrueUp, more than 144,000 technology workers have lost their jobs globally so far in 2026. Among the biggest workforce reductions this year, Meta announced plans to cut around 8,000 jobs as part of its AI restructuring strategy, with additional layoffs expected later in the year.