Regarding the recent popular notion that "companies adopt AI and then lay off employees," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently publicly refuted this view. He clearly pointed out that the reality is the opposite, and companies that adopt AI the most are actually the ones currently investing the most in the job market.

Layoffs are often just an excuse for companies

Altman believes that many companies claim to be laying off employees due to the introduction of AI, which is often just a convenient explanation used by management to justify layoffs. According to his observation, companies that loudly claim to cut positions due to AI are actually the ones that are the slowest in technological transformation and the least adopting AI.

He also admitted that he still cannot absolutely guarantee how AI will ultimately reshape the job market. However, after seeing that many companies widely use OpenAI's programming tools, he has become more optimistic about the future job prospects than ever before.

Overestimated the model's ability to handle complex tasks

In reflecting on past developments, Altman admitted that he had previously underestimated the "unbalanced nature" of model capabilities. He pointed out that current AI models perform extremely well in certain specific tasks, but are almost completely incapable of handling areas that require long-term and complex task supervision.

Additionally, Altman expressed regret about some of the press releases that OpenAI had issued in the past, believing that the wording at the time may have exacerbated public anxiety about unemployment. He specifically mentioned the GPT-5.2 press release from last year, which claimed the model "outperformed professionals in 44 occupations." He now believes a more accurate statement should have been "outperformed professionals in small tasks within 44 occupations."