For months, layoffs at big tech have been justified under the umbrella of AI as if it were the great devourer of jobs. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, assures that these companies have used AI as a scapegoat to carry out unpopular cuts which have nothing to do with, in fact, anything to do with the actual use or implementation of this technology.
This trick, known as “AI washing“ or AI laundering, has allowed companies to make up workforce adjustments to readjust to a new market situation after overhiring during the pandemic and save costs, while at the same time imbuing themselves with a technological innovation patina.
The perfect excuse. In an interview for the American network CNBC On the occasion of the India IA Impact Summit, Sam Altman attacked those who were using AI as a pretext to fire their staff. However, the founder of OpenAI described a two-pronged scenario: on the one hand, there are companies that rely on the AI narrative to justify unpopular cuts. “I don’t know what the exact percentage is, but there’s a bit of ‘AI washing’ where people blame AI for layoffs they would do anyway.”
However, the manager also recognized that the arrival of AI was indeed displacing some profiles due to the automation of certain administrative tasks, although he justified this displacement as part of the natural technological evolution. “We will find new types of jobs, as we do with each technological revolution.”
Altman acknowledges that “the real impact of AI on employment in the coming years will begin to be palpable,” but he does not believe that the current impact of AI on the labor market is so severe as to be the direct cause of the hundreds of thousands of layoffs which were executed in 2025.
The data does not fit the narrative. A study of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) revealed that almost 90% of the 6,000 managers of companies from the US, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia who participated stated that AI has not affected employment in the three years after the launch of ChatGPT.
Other report Prepared by The Budget Lab at Yale University, it analyzed data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics until November 2025 and found no significant variations in unemployment in the occupations most exposed to the impact of AI. Martha Gimbel, co-director of the laboratory that prepared the report, assured to Fortune that “No matter what perspective you look at the data, at this very moment it doesn’t look like there are any major macroeconomic effects here.”
According to the report data of the Challenger, Gray & Christmas labor platform, in 2025 were attributed directly to the AI some 54,836 layoffs, out of a total of 1,206,374 layoffs in the US during 2025. This implies that the AI was really behind 0.045% of the total of all layoffs for the year.
The threat is real. Although AI is not the real reason behind the current layoffs, its impact on the labor market in the coming years is undeniable. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, stated a few days ago to Business Insider that “half of office jobs could disappear in the next five years.”
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of the Klarna payment platform, which has already dispensed with part of its staff to implement AI customer service agents, spoke along the same lines. in an interview. The manager assured that by 2030 his company will be able to do without 30% of the 3,000 employees who currently make up the payment platform’s workforce.
On the other hand, as how he published he Financial Timesthe data are already beginning to show the first effects of the increase in productivity derived from technological investment with a relative drop of 13% in the employment of junior workers in positions highly exposed to AI.
Don’t call it AI, call it dropping ballast. However, the incipient arrival of AI in the coming years does not justify that the layoffs that have been carried out throughout 2025 are as a direct effect of AI or because an AI has replaced the worker.
In a statementAmazon linked the dismissal of 16,000 employees to AI, saying it would need “fewer people for some jobs done today.” Days later, at a conference with investors, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy disassociated the layoffs from AI, stating that “The announcement we made a few days ago didn’t have a real financial boost, it’s not even driven by AI, at least not right now. It’s a cultural issue.”
Microsoft and other companies have followed the same pattern of justification for dismissals making excuses for AI, when in reality AI is not implemented enough in companies to be a reason for dismissal in rounds of tens of thousands of employees. Call it business strategy, but don’t blame AI.
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