Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, said he no longer believes AI will trigger the mass employment crisis that he and others in the industry had been warning about. Speaking at a conference in Sydney on May 26, Altman said: “I don’t think we’re going to have the kind of jobs apocalypse that some of the companies in our space advocate or talk about.”

This is the same person who testified before Congress in 2025 predicting a much faster decline in certain job categories due to AI competition.

The mea culpa on white-collar jobs

Altman specifically acknowledged that he had overestimated how quickly AI would displace entry-level white-collar workers. When ChatGPT launched in late 2022, the prevailing narrative was that customer service reps, administrative assistants, and junior analysts were about to get replaced at scale. Altman expressed surprise at how limited AI’s actual impact on these roles has been so far.

The reason, according to Altman, is that many jobs fundamentally depend on human interaction, which limits the potential for AI replacement.

OpenAI is hiring, not firing

OpenAI aims to nearly double its workforce to approximately 8,000 employees by the end of 2026.

What this means for investors

Altman made zero references to cryptocurrency, digital tokens, or blockchain during his remarks. The investor conversation in this cycle is firmly centered on AI growth and enterprise adoption. Capital flowing into OpenAI’s ecosystem is capital that’s not chasing speculative token plays.