OpenAI CEO Admits AI Costing Fewer Jobs Than Feared: “I’m Glad I Was Wrong”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has acknowledged that artificial intelligence is displacing fewer jobs than he initially feared, stating he is “delighted to be wrong” about predictions that white-collar employment would be decimated by the technology. Speaking at a Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) conference in Sydney on 26 May 2026, Altman told CBA CEO Matt Comyn that entry-level white-collar positions have proven far more resilient than he anticipated.
“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, according to Het Laatste Nieuws. “I now think I understand more about why it hasn’t, and I’m obviously grateful but that is an area where my intuitions were just off.”
Context: A Shift in Tone from AI’s Leading Voice
The admission marks a notable shift for Altman, who has previously warned of significant disruption to white-collar employment since ChatGPT launched in late 2022. Early projections from various analysts suggested that as many as 40% of jobs could be automated by 2030. Altman’s revised outlook suggests the timeline for AI-driven job displacement may be considerably longer than initially feared.
According to The News International, Altman emphasized that human interaction remains an irreplaceable component of many roles. “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,” he said.
Altman also told the conference: “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.”
The Missing Data: A Notable Gap
While Altman’s reassurances were widely reported, multiple sources noted that he did not provide any data or statistics to support his revised outlook. CryptoBriefing observed that the statement was based on personal observation rather than systematic research, noting that “the CEO of the world’s most prominent AI company significantly overestimated the pace of disruption in his own product’s primary use case.”
In a separate analysis, CryptoBriefing highlighted that Altman also acknowledged AI has yet to deliver meaningful revenue or productivity gains at scale, a candid admission that could have implications for AI sector valuations.
Contradictory Signals: Job Cuts Continue
Despite Altman’s optimistic assessment, major technology companies continue to eliminate thousands of positions with AI cited as a contributing factor. Amazon has announced approximately 14,000 corporate job cuts, while Meta plans to cut around 8,000 roles, or roughly one in ten employees, as part of a major push to adopt AI tools.
Altman himself acknowledged during the conference that jobs are indeed being eliminated by AI at companies like Amazon and Meta, creating a tension in the narrative that the research itself highlights.
Broader Debate: Divergent Views from Industry Leaders
Altman’s comments come during a week of sharply contrasting messages from technology leaders. On 25 May 2026, the co-founder of Anthropic, maker of the Claude AI model, warned that “there is a real possibility that AI will displace human labor at a very large scale” and that supporting displaced workers would be a “moral imperative of historic proportions.”
Similarly, BlackRock’s CEO has warned about the rapid replacement of jobs by AI. In contrast, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon has described fears of mass AI unemployment as “overblown,” aligning more closely with Altman’s revised position.
CBA’s Dual Message
CBA CEO Matt Comyn, who interviewed Altman at the conference, published an editorial in The Australian Financial Review on the same day striking a more cautious tone. “At CBA, as in many large organisations, some work will be done by smaller teams. Pretending otherwise does not protect workers. It only ensures they are surprised later,” Comyn wrote. “Change will not be painless, so it must be handled with care.”
CBA, Australia’s largest lender employing over 50,000 people, spends approximately A$2.4 billion annually on technology and has partnerships with both OpenAI and Anthropic. The bank is rolling out a new AI customer tool called “Companion” while using AI for fraud detection. In 2025, CBA was forced to backtrack on plans to dismiss approximately 45 customer service roles due to AI after union pressure.
Analysis: What This Means for Workers and Investors
For workers, particularly in white-collar roles across Belgium and the Netherlands where the story received wide pickup via the ANP wire service, Altman’s comments may provide some short-term reassurance. However, the lack of supporting data and the simultaneous announcement of major layoffs at tech firms suggest the debate is far from settled.
For investors, Altman’s candor about AI’s failure to deliver measurable productivity gains at scale is significant. If the CEO of the world’s most prominent AI company is publicly acknowledging that the technology has not yet transformed the economy as expected, valuations baked into many AI-related equities may be running ahead of fundamentals.
What to Watch Next
Several key questions remain unanswered. What specific data, if any, underlies Altman’s revised view on AI job displacement? How will the ongoing AI-driven layoffs at Amazon, Meta, and other major firms reconcile with his optimistic outlook? And will the Belgian and EU regulatory framework on AI and employment shape how this debate unfolds in Europe?
As the AI industry continues to evolve, the tension between Altman’s reassurances and real-world layoffs at AI-adjacent companies illustrates the uneven and unpredictable nature of this technological transition. The coming months will reveal whether Altman’s revised intuition proves more accurate than his original fears.