Sam Altman: AI won't cause a jobs apocalypse after all

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has walked back some of his earlier fears about artificial intelligence's impact on employment, saying AI is unlikely to trigger a "jobs apocalypse" and that white-collar job losses have so far been far less severe than he had anticipated.

Altman's comments carry weight given OpenAI's central role in driving the current wave of generative AI adoption across industries. His more measured outlook suggests that, at least in the near term, the labour market is absorbing AI-driven automation more gradually than the most alarming forecasts predicted.

For markets, a softer jobs-disruption narrative reduces the political risk of heavy-handed AI regulation — a modest positive for the broader AI and tech investment thesis.