Sam Altman Says AI Will Not Lead To A Global 'Jobs Apocalypse'

Sam Altman, arguably the most public-facing executive in the current AI wave, doesn’t want you to worry about a “job apocalypse.”

Speaking at a Commonwealth Bank of Australia conference in Sydney, Altman pushed back on dire industry predictions of an AI-driven labor disruption.

"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 told CBA Chief Executive Matt Comyn.

Altman’s comments come despite several major companies citing AI as the reason behind their mass lay-offs and downsizing.

‘I’m Delighted To Be Wrong About This’

Meta (NASDAQ:META) reduced its staff, laying off 8,000 employees as the company shifts to an entirely "AI-first" model. Salesforce (NYSE:CRM) cut 5,000 jobs as the company built out its Agentforce platform and deployed AI agents to handle customer service interactions, while Oracle (NYSE:ORCL) initiated structural cuts estimated between 20,000 and 30,000 employees, pivoting aggressively towards AI infrastructure investments, Business Insider recently reported.

Altman said OpenAI leaders had been "roughly right" about the technology's trajectory after ChatGPT's 2022 debut, but "pretty wrong" about social and economic impacts. 

"I’m delighted to ⁠be wrong about this, 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 added that he still views the risk as worth discussing, even if the worst outcomes have not shown up yet. 

"People are like ‘oh you could have saved the world a lot of fearmongering and a lot of doom and gloom,” Altman added. “But at the time I was, like, I see this is a real risk we should probably talk about it and it still may.”

‘We Really Do Care’

Altman also pointed to a "human part" of work that he now thinks is harder to automate away than he previously believed. He described testing AI-generated replies for Slack and email, including messages labeled "this is Sam’s AI," before deciding to personally handle some conversations again.

"We really do care about our interactions with people and this thing, which is a huge amount of my time, is not something that I can imagine myself outsourcing to an AI anytime soon," Altman said. He said that shift in perspective changed his view of how AI could reshape employment across many roles.

OpenAI reportedly filed its IPO paperwork confidentially in May 2026, aiming for a massive public listing in September or October.

The ChatGPT-maker has been working with bankers at Goldman Sachs Group(NYSE:GS) and Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) on a draft prospectus, according to the Wall Street Journal.

OpenAI has been associated with discussions that include a potential $1 trillion valuation and a capital raise of at least $60 billion, Reuters previously reported.

Photo: Shutterstock