Sam Altman says AI is displacing jobs, but some companies are blaming it for layoffs they would've made anyway

• Sam Altman says some companies are blaming AI for layoffs that would've happened anyway.
• He told CNBC-TV18 that he didn't know what percentage of companies were "AI washing" layoffs.
• The OpenAI CEO said the "real impact of AI doing jobs" would be palpable in the next few years.

AI is shaking up the job market — but in some cases, companies are blaming the technology for layoffs they were already planning, says OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

"I don't know what the exact percentage is, but there's some AI washing where people are blaming AI for layoffs that they would otherwise do, and then there's some real displacement by AI of different kinds of jobs," Altman told CNBC-TV18 on the sidelines of the India AI Impact Summit on Thursday.

"I expect we'll see more of the latter over time," he said.

Altman added that although new types of jobs would be created in the AI era, the "real impact of AI doing jobs" would begin to be palpable in the next few years.

Companies that have cited AI when reducing employee head count include Amazon, IBM, Salesforce, and HP. There is no evidence of AI washing at these companies, a term used to describe companies overstating the role of artificial intelligence in a product or business decision.

Altman, whose company provides AI tools that reshape and displace jobs, has previously said the technology will cause job disruption, but that people will find new forms of work and adapt.

Others have been more explicit. Dario Amodei, the CEO of Anthropic, warned last year that AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs in the next five years. Demis Hassabis, the CEO of Google DeepMind, said last month that he was already seeing some evidence that AI was causing a hiring slowdown at the company for junior roles.