OpenAI CEO Sam Altman advises companies against rapid hiring, citing AI’s growing capabilities. He advocates for slower, deliberate workforce expansion to avoid difficult layoffs. Altman revealed OpenAI will significantly reduce its hiring pace, emphasizing increased productivity through AI, though no staff cuts are planned. This comes amid a broader hiring slowdown in the US.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has once again addressed how artificial intelligence (AI) will impact the workforce. The chief executive of the company behind the popular ChatGPT chatbot has warned companies against aggressive hiring after making AI-driven layoffs. He has advised companies to take a more cautious approach to workforce expansion as AI capabilities continue to advance.In a recently live-streamed town hall event (seen by Business Insider), Altman said, “What I think we shouldn’t do, and what I hope other companies won’t do either, is hire super aggressively, then realise all of a sudden AI can do a lot of stuff, and you need fewer people, and have to have some sort of very uncomfortable conversation. So I think the right approach for us will be to hire more slowly but keep hiring.”Altman’s comments, which were directed mainly at developers, come amid the “Great Freeze” and concerns that job creation in America has lost momentum. The unemployment rate in November 2025 reached its highest level since 2021, while job openings have fallen 37% from their peak in 2022, according to data from the Bureau of Labour Statistics.

What Sam Altman said about OpenAI’s hiring plans

At the event, Altman also revealed that the company plans to slow down its hiring rate due to increased productivity from AI tools. However, he clarified that there would be no hiring freeze at OpenAI and that the company would not be eliminating any human employees.Responding to a participant who asked if AI has changed OpenAI’s interview process of potential candidates, Altman said, “We are planning to dramatically slow down how quickly we grow because we think we’ll be able to do so much more with fewer people.”A Business Insider report from last year suggested that, while in 2022 there were roughly two job openings for every unemployed worker, by September 2025 that ratio had fallen to one. Workers who have been unemployed for at least 27 weeks now account for about a quarter of all unemployed Americans.In the US, the hiring slowdown has disproportionately affected young workers, data from the US Census Bureau suggests. In August and September of 2025, the unemployment rate for Americans between the ages of 20 and 24 hit 9.2%, the highest since the pandemic recession’s recovery.