<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know what the exact percentage is, but there\u2019s some AI washing where people are blaming AI for layoffs that they would otherwise do,\u201d he told CNBC-TV18.<\/p>\n This isn\u2019t the first time industry stakeholders questioned the veracity of AI-related layoffs. A study by Oxford Economics in January this year claimed most layoffs are due to \u201cmore traditional drivers\u201d such as overhiring or poor financial performance.<\/p>\n Notably, the Oxford Economics report suggested enterprises are now actively using AI as an excuse for layoffs<\/a> to cover for lackluster financial performance.<\/p>\n “While a rising number of firms are pinning job losses on AI<\/a>, other more traditional drivers of job layoffs are far more commonly cited,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat’s more, we suspect some firms are trying to dress up layoffs as a good news story rather than bad news, such as past over-hiring.”<\/p>\n A separate report from Morgan Stanley in January suggested businesses are capitalizing on this trend and using AI as a “license to reduce headcount”<\/a>.<\/p>\n Altman thinks new jobs will come<\/p>\n Altman later acknowledged that AI is having an impact on the jobs market. However, long-term job growth as a result of AI will offset potential losses in the near term.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s some real displacement by AI of different kinds of jobs,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll find new kinds of jobs as we do with every tech revolution. I would expect that the real impact of AI doing jobs in the next few years will begin to be palpable.\u201d<\/p>\n Altman\u2019s prediction here aligns with research from Gartner and Forrester on the potential impact of AI on the global jobs market. In January, Forrester predicted 10 million jobs could be lost worldwide<\/a> as enterprise adoption ramps up.<\/p>\n \n Altman joined industry executives including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and Google CEO Sundar Pichai at the AI Impact Summit this week.<\/p>\n (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n The consultancy noted, however, that new roles will eventually take the place of those lost.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Gartner research last year projected a period of flux across a range of industries due to AI adoption, again pointing to long-term gains in the labor market \u2013 albeit with certain caveats.<\/p>\n Analysis from the firm found that around 32 million jobs will be \u201creconfigured, redesigned, or fused\u201d by AI each year from 2028 onwards.<\/p>\n Simply put, while some jobs will be impacted, enterprises will focus on combining aspects of certain roles, with AI used to support remaining workers.<\/p>\n This all depends on the scale and speed of reskilling efforts across a range of industries, however.<\/p>\n Speaking to ITPro at the time, Helen Poitevin, distinguished VP analyst at Gartner said roughly 150,000 people will require upskilling each day in the coming years to help them adapt.<\/p>\n The scramble to bolster AI skills across an array of industry workforces will be chaotic, she noted, but not an outright \u201capocalypse\u201d as some critics have suggested.<\/p>\n \u201cOur position is there will be no AI jobs apocalypse, but it will unleash jobs chaos,\u201d Poitevin told ITPro.<\/p>\n White collar work in the crosshairs<\/p>\n Altman\u2019s comments mark the latest in a string of conflicting messages from big tech industry leaders – as well as growing concerns about the impact of AI on \u201cwhite collar\u201d work.<\/p>\n A recent study from the US National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) found business leaders have recorded negligible productivity gains<\/a> from AI adoption, raising questions over the pace of return on investment (ROI).<\/p>\n That study echoes findings from previous research conducted by the Danish National Bureau of Economic Research, which again recorded little-to-no impact on workforce productivity<\/a>.<\/p>\n Despite a string of studies pointing to the contrary, some tech industry figures still believe that AI will eventually render some workers obsolete.<\/p>\n In a recent interview with the Financial Times<\/a>, for example, Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman insisted AI will begin replacing \u201cwhite collar\u201d workers within 18 months.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019re going to have a human-level performance on most if not all professional tasks,\u201d Suleyman told the Financial Times.<\/p>\n \u201cSo white collar work where you\u2019re sitting down at a computer, either being a lawyer or an accountant or a project manager or a marketing person, most of those tasks will be fully automated by an AI <\/a>in the next 12 to 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA<\/p>\n Make sure to follow ITPro on Google News<\/a> to keep tabs on all our latest news, analysis, and reviews.<\/p>\n You can also follow ITPro on LinkedIn<\/a>, X<\/a>, Facebook<\/a>, and BlueSky<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sam Altman believes a significant portion of AI layoffs aren\u2019t due to the technology taking jobs, but are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437828,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-437827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437827"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437827\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"OpenAI](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/gbMa3fnLyNhYZXv59Er2oA.jpg\")
\n<\/p>\n