CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman wants us to know everything will be fine with AI. In a recent blog post, he said that “people are capable of adapting to almost anything.” Coming from someone whose company stands to profit immensely from widespread AI adoption, it’s a remarkably brazen reassurance. The reality of AI has not been so rosy for many workers, however.
Tech executives like Altman tell almost utopian stories about AI: they promise revolutionary tools that amplify human capability and free workers to focus on higher-level tasks. But workers are living a much more dystopian reality. A recent survey found that most Americans report a “voice gap” regarding technology adoption at work—they have little to no say in how AI tools are implemented in their jobs.
While Altman seems to think that everything will be fine with AI, many workers are already losing their jobs to the technology. In 2025, over 48,000 job cuts have been directly attributed to AI, according to outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas. Furthermore, this October saw the highest number of layoffs for any single month in the fourth quarter since 2008. And U.S. employers are already planning to hire 35% fewer workers in 2026 than they had planned for 2025.
The scope of potential disruption extends far beyond these numbers. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell recently warned that job creation has fallen “pretty close to zero,” a phenomenon some have called the “AI hiring apocalypse.” Major companies like Salesforce have announced thousands of job cuts explicitly attributed to AI, with CEO Marc Benioff stating that he’s “reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000, because [he] need[s] less heads.” This pattern is repeating across Silicon Valley’s tech giants, from Microsoft to Meta.
AI could even lead to economy-wide disruption. A landmark MIT study found that current AI systems could already replace 11.7% of the U.S. workforce—representing roughly $1.2 trillion in wages across 151 million workers. And contrary to the narrative that this is just a tech sector problem, the research identified significant automation risks in financial services, professional services, and other white-collar fields. The tech layoffs grabbing headlines are merely the tip of the iceberg.
Workers are not taking the AI revolution sitting down, however. Over 2,000 employees across Amazon, Meta, Google, and Microsoft recently signed an open letter raising concerns about AI’s impacts on labor. And politicians from both sides of the aisle are taking notes on the public’s concerns: Democratic Senator Mark Warner and Republican Senator Josh Hawley have announced plans to introduce a bill studying the impact of AI on the workforce. When figures across the political spectrum agree something demands attention, it’s worth taking seriously
Adapting to AI will require something more than blind faith in workers’ resilience. It requires considering innovative policies like retraining programs, safety nets, and maintaining citizens’ voices in how these technologies reshape our workplaces. When Altman assures us that “people are capable of adapting to almost anything,” it rings hollow coming from someone whose wealth insulates him from such adaptations. The American people didn’t vote for wholesale job disruption, yet it’s being imposed on them by executives who face none of the downside risk.
What we need isn’t more reassurance from those who stand to profit. We need proactive policy that ensures AI adoption happens in ways that protect jobs and empower workers. When tech CEOs tell us not to worry, that’s precisely when we should start paying very close attention.