Business leaders and tech experts think AI has white-collar work on the chopping block. Now, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman says not even the CEO’s job is safe from automation.
Speaking at the AI Impact Summit in New Delhi, the tech billionaire warned an audience of technology and policy leaders that AI superintelligence could soon eclipse even the world’s most powerful executives—including his own job as CEO of OpenAI.
“AI superintelligence at some point on its development curve would be capable of doing a better job being the CEO of a major company than any executive, certainly me,” Altman admitted. He added that that reality is not far off. “On our current trajectory, we believe we may be only a couple of years away from early versions of true superintelligence.”
While the full impact of AI on white-collar work remains uncertain, renewed warnings from AI experts that the technology could upend professions from accounting to law have sent jitters across the professional world. Microsoft AI chief Mustafa Suleyman said last week white-collar work has a year to 18 months until AI completely automates work. And a viral essay from AI researcher Matt Shumer last week likened today’s debate over AI and jobs to February 2020—just before the COVID-19 pandemic upended the U.S. economy.
The idea that white-collar work could be upended marks the resurgence of a sentiment shared widely during early 2025, when executives made similar doom-and-gloom forecasts. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei predicted that half of entry-level white-collar jobs could be eliminated. As AI grows more powerful, Altman is doubling down on that idea.
“Current jobs are going to get disrupted as AI can do more and more of the things that drive our economy today,” Altman said. “It’ll be very hard to outwork a GPU.”
AI is already reshaping the C-suite
AI has already played an outsize role in transforming the C-suite at some Fortune 500 firms, helping executives cut down on middle management and merge departments in a “great flattening” through the removal of junior and support roles. At Moderna, for example, human resources and tech both operate under the chief people and digital officer as more automated technology is rolled out.
When it comes to white-collar work, AI has so far revealed only modest changes. A 2025 Thomson Reuters analysis of global professional firms found some productivity increases with AI. But the changes have fallen short of triggering mass layoffs. Despite this reality, 61% of white-collar workers believe AI could replace their job within the next couple of years, according to a study from online learning platform Udacity.
Still, Altman is bullish on AI’s potential, saying that even in two years, the wealth of the world’s intellect will live inside data centers, surpassing the intelligence of most humans: “If we are right, by the end of 2028, more of the world’s intellectual capacity could reside inside of data centers than outside of them.”
Although the CEO says AI could have the capacity to take his job—along with thousands of other roles—his prediction is not pessimistic. Instead, he believes the technology will only drive humanity forward, as AI is just the latest technological advancement in human history to change the way we do things.
“We always find new and better things to do,” Altman said. “I’m confident we will keep being driven to be useful to each other, to express our creativity, to gain status, to compete, and much more.”
