The sentiment change isn’t limited to tech leaders: A survey by EY-Parthenon found that the percentage of CEOs who believe AI investments will result in significant reductions in head count fell from around 46% in January 2025 to just 20% this May.
“They may have noticed that the labor market is genuinely not changing (i.e., imploding) as rapidly as they expected,” said David Autor, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “They may have realized it was simply bad business to say that your great new product will destroy the economy.”
One recent study by financial-technology company Ramp and workforce-intelligence firm Revelio Labs found that companies making the largest AI investments grew employment by roughly 10% more than otherwise similar companies that hadn’t yet adopted AI.
“The companies that I know that have adopted AI the most are also the ones hiring the most,” Altman said in the CNBC interview. AI is even creating new demand for certain jobs, and more will come that don’t yet exist, some tech leaders say.
Many of the world’s most prominent economists disagree on AI’s long-term impact on jobs.