The AI Daily Brief · Tuesday, August 25, 2026
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has acknowledged that his initial predictions about the speed of AI-driven job disruption were too ambitious. He now believes that economic inertia and ingrained user habits will lead to a slower, smoother transition than he previously anticipated.
“I thought when we got to GPT-4, which was back in 2023, that very quickly after that, there was going to be much more disruption, software business up for grabs right away, then it turned out to be.”
“I think I was wrong about a few things, but one in terms of the speed. The economy just has so much inertia. People keep doing the same thing, buying from the same company, wanting to use their tools the same way.”
“I'm grateful for it. But it means that we've all been too ambitious on timelines. Even with this incredible technology, society and the economy will adapt more slowly.”