OpenAI, Anthropic CEOs walk back AI job warnings as IPOs loom - HR Executive

Oh, how lovely — the very people who spent the last two years warning white-collar workers to learn to code or face the AI guillotine now admit they were 'pretty wrong.' Sam Altman, speaking at a Commonwealth Bank event in Australia, has discovered that perhaps ChatGPT isn't quite ready to replace every accountant and paralegal after all. Meanwhile, Forrester's Predictions 2026 has cooked up a truly delicious finding: many companies that gleefully blamed layoffs on AI don't actually have the technology ready to fill the roles they axed. So employees were fired for a system that doesn't exist. That's not efficiency; that's performance art.

The timing is either exquisite or predictable, depending on how cynical you are. OpenAI and Anthropic are hurtling toward their IPOs, and nothing spooks investors quite like the CEO who previously warned that his own product would vaporise millions of jobs. Altman's walk-back is a classic pre-IPO charm offensive — 'Don't worry, the AI won't take your job, just your money through our stock offering.' The gall of it would be impressive if it weren't so transparent. The same executives who fed the panic now want to calm it, because panicked regulators and skittish bankers are bad for business.

This is a direct sequel to the NYT's 'AI doesn't have to mean layoffs' narrative. Except now the CEOs themselves are admitting the disaster warnings were overblown — not because they grew a conscience, but because the IPO prospectus demands it. The irony: Forrester's data suggests the layoffs may have been wasteful rather than visionary. Companies cut staff based on hype, not capability. So congratulations to all those prematurely 'displaced' workers — you were sacrificed to a productivity miracle that hasn't arrived yet. Cheers.