‘AI washing’: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appears to confirm sneaky job loss trendOne of the biggest names in AI has appeared to confirm a growing theory about the recent rise of job losses - with the trend sparking major concern.Ally Foster3 min readFebruary 21, 2026 - 4:16PMFor the past year we have heard of an increasing number of companies slashing jobs as a result of AI — with businesses claiming they now need less people to do the work as the technology advances.However, there may be more to this rise of lay offs than meets the eye, with some experts expressing skeptisicm about the relation to AI, suggesting that some companies may be using the technology as a blanket excuse for unrelated job cuts.The phenomenon has been branded “AI washing” and, now, it seems one of the biggest names in the space - OpenAI CEO Sam Altman - has confirmed this theory.“I don’t know what the exact percentage is, but there’s some AI washing where people are blaming AI for lay-offs that they would otherwise do, and then there’s some real displacement by AI of different kinds of jobs,” Mr Altman told CNBC-TV18 at the India AI Impact Summit on Thursday.“I expect we’ll see more of the latter over time.”CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman. Picture: Demetrius Freeman/The Washington Post via Getty ImagesIn 2025, AI was cited as the reason for more than 54,800 job cuts across the US, according to a report from consulting firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas in December.A recent study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that, of thousands of C-suite executives surveyed across the US, UK, Germany and Australia, almost 90 per cent said AI had no impact on workplace employment over the past three years.However, despite Mr Altman suggesting some companies were using AI as an excuse for lay offs right now - he believes there will be an increase in the number of genuine job losses related to the technology in the future.“We’ll find new kinds of jobs, as we do with every tech revolution,” he said. “But I would expect that the real impact of AI doing jobs in the next few years will begin to be palpable.”In the past 12 months we have been bombarded with increasingly concerning warnings about the impact of the technology on jobs.In 2025, AI was cited as the reason for more than 54,800 job cuts across the US. Picture: SuppliedAnalysis from Australian policy organisation the Social Policy Group (SPG) found if Australia maintains its current pace of AI adoption, one third of the workforce could experience a period of unemployment by 2030.Last year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, warned the technology could eliminate half of all entry-level, white-collar jobs within the next five years.In a May interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the 42-year-old said that politicians and businesses are not prepared for the spike in unemployment rates AI could prompt.“AI is starting to get better than humans at almost all intellectual tasks, and we’re going to collectively, as a society, grapple with it,” Mr Amodei said.“AI is going to get better at what everyone does, including what I do, including what other CEOs do.”The technology that companies like his are building, Mr Amodei said, could boost unemployment in America as high as 20 per cent by 2030.In an even more ominous warning, Geoffrey Hinton, the man known as the “godfather of AI”, claimed there was a 10 to 20 per cent chance the technology could “wipe out” humanity.Mr Hinton is a renowned computer scientist who is for developing neural networks, which helped lay the foundation behind many of today’s artificial intelligence (AI) models, including ChatGPT, facial recognition and self-driving cars.Despite this, he has also advocated for a pause in AI developments, along with signing multiple letters opposing OpenAI becoming a for-profit company.In an interview with the Financial Times, he claimed AI advancements could result in widespread job losses, leading to people becoming “poorer”.More Coverage‘Civil unrest’: CEO’s scary AI job predictionHannah WilcoxEx-Google exec’s alarming 2027 predictionMiranda Wang“What’s actually going to happen is rich people are going to use AI to replace workers,” he said.“It’s going to create massive unemployment and a huge rise in profits. It will make a few people much richer and most people poorer.”However, Prof Hinton said this wouldn’t be AI’s fault, claiming that it is just “the capitalist system”.More related storiesTrends‘Survival’: Grim work trend hits AustraliaAs the cost-of-living crisis continues its grip on Australian households, millions are searching for ways to survive.Read moreTrends‘No one cares’: Absolutely brutal WFH callAussies hoping to score a WFH job after having children have been issued a very blunt warning, with one expert saying they are in for a “rude reality check”.Read moreWork‘Civil unrest’: CEO’s scary AI job predictionAI has triggered the highest workforce cuts since the financial crisis, with one CEO warning government bans may have to be introduced.Read more