'Can't blame everything on...': OpenAI CEO calls out tech companies for mass layoffs

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has called retired a increasing firm inclination of blaming artificial quality for layoffs that person small to bash with the exertion itself. Altman says portion AI is genuinely displacing immoderate jobs, a information of companies are simply dressing up regular cost-cutting successful AI's clothing—a signifier helium called "AI washing.

" It's a favoritism that matters, Altman said, due to the fact that it's muddying the public's knowing of what the exertion tin really bash today."I don't cognize what the nonstop percent is, but there's immoderate AI washing wherever radical are blaming AI for layoffs that they would different do, and past there's immoderate existent displacement by AI of antithetic kinds of jobs," Sam Altman told told CNBC-TV18, connected the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit successful New Delhi.

The existent disruption, Altman added, is inactive connected its way.

What 'AI washing' really means—and wherefore companies bash it

The word borrows from "greenwashing"—the signifier of making thing look much environmentally liable than it is. In this case, companies property workforce reductions to AI-driven efficiencies adjacent erstwhile the existent reasons are acold much mundane: pandemic-era overhiring, slowing user demand, oregon plain aged restructuring.It's a calculated communicative choice. Blaming AI positions a institution arsenic a forward-thinking tech disruptor alternatively than a concern cleaning up its ain strategical mess.

Investors person rewarded this framing successful the past, which makes it an charismatic communicative to tell—even if it isn't wholly true.The numbers archer a analyzable story. January 2026 saw 108,435 occupation cuts successful the US, the worst monthly tally since 2009, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas. But AI was explicitly cited successful lone astir 7,600 of those cases. The biggest drivers were declaration losses, marketplace conditions, and restructuring.

Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, and the signifier of walking it back

Some high-profile examples person already unraveled nether scrutiny. Amazon laid disconnected 30,000 firm workers crossed October 2025 and January 2026, with its HR main linking the cuts to AI-driven transformation. But CEO Andy Jassy aboriginal walked that back, pointing alternatively to over-hiring and excessively galore absorption layers—"pre-meetings for the pre-meetings," arsenic helium enactment it.IBM's reversal is possibly the astir striking. Back successful May 2023, CEO Arvind Krishna told Bloomberg the institution would intermission hiring for astir 7,800 back-office roles that AI could grip wrong 5 years.

Three years later, IBM HR main Nickle LaMoreaux announced the institution is tripling entry-level hiring crossed the US successful 2026—"for each these jobs that we're being told AI tin do," she said astatine Charter's Leading With AI Summit successful New York.

The catch: these aren't the aforesaid roles. IBM has overhauled occupation descriptions to bespeak however AI has reshaped day-to-day work, with inferior developers spending much clip with customers and little clip connected regular code.Microsoft chopped implicit 15,000 workers successful 2025, with the layoffs wide framed astir AI transformation. Yet CEO Satya Nadella acknowledged successful a memo to employees that wide headcount remained fundamentally flat—quietly undercutting the communicative that the cuts were purely AI-driven. Duolingo's CEO made a akin pivot aft announcing the institution would spell "AI first" and signifier retired contractors, aboriginal clarifying to the New York Times that the institution had ne'er laid disconnected full-time employees and didn't program to.The irony writes itself. Companies spent months telling the satellite AI was transforming their workforce—only to softly admit it was truly conscionable a atrocious quarter, a bloated org chart, oregon a pandemic hiring hangover.

Real occupation displacement is coming—just not astatine the gait CEOs suggest

Altman was wide that AI washing doesn't mean AI isn't having a existent impact. "I expect we'll spot much of the second implicit time," helium said, referring to genuine occupation displacement. "The existent interaction of AI doing jobs successful the adjacent fewer years volition statesman to beryllium palpable."Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has gone further, informing that AI could hitch retired 50% of entry-level white-collar jobs successful the adjacent 1 to 5 years. Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman enactment a bolder timeline connected it—18 months earlier astir tasks done "sitting astatine a computer" are afloat automated.But economists impulse caution. Research from the Yale Budget Lab recovered nary important AI-related labour marketplace shifts done November 2025.

"No substance which mode you look astatine the data, astatine this nonstop moment, it conscionable doesn't look similar there's large macroeconomic effects here," said Martha Gimbel, the lab's enforcement director.IBM's LaMoreaux offered a much grounded take: cutting early-career hiring present risks creating a mid-level absorption shortage down the line, forcing companies to poach experienced endowment astatine higher cost. Dropbox is making a akin bet, expanding its internship and caller postgraduate programmes by 25%—its main radical serviceman noting that younger workers are simply amended astatine utilizing AI than their seniors.For now, Altman's presumption lands determination successful the middle: the disruption is real, but it's not present yet—and immoderate companies are getting up of themselves for the incorrect reasons.