Layoffs have been rising across the U.S. for months, including in industries such as technology, finance, retail and media. Some well-known companies, such as Amazon, Meta, Citigroup, etc., have also announced layoff plans as they shift investments to artificial intelligence and automation to adapt to the changing economic environment.

However, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently refuted the idea that artificial intelligence was the main reason for the layoffs.

“I don’t know what the exact percentage is, but there’s a bit of AI whitewashing where people are blaming AI for layoffs that would have been made, and AI does replace some different types of jobs,” Altman said in a recent interview at the AI ​​Impact Summit in New Delhi, India.

"I expect the latter scenario to become more common as time goes on," he added, according to Business Insider. Altman also claimed that while the rise of artificial intelligence will create entirely new job opportunities, its ability to replace human jobs may become particularly evident in the coming years.

Several major companies, including Amazon, IBM, Salesforce and HP, have cited AI as a major reason for their layoffs. But there’s no sign these companies are exaggerating the impact of AI.

According to Fox Business Channel, Amazon CEO Andy Jesse pointed out last year that emerging technologies may bring new job opportunities, but also increase the efficiency of certain processes, which means that in some areas of the business, the number of employees will be reduced.

Last June, he said: "We will need fewer people in the future. We will no longer need as many people to do the work currently done by multiple people. In the next few years, as artificial intelligence becomes more widely used across the company, we expect that artificial intelligence will improve efficiency and thus reduce the overall number of employees in the company."

It's worth noting that Amazon's recent layoffs are among the largest in the company's three decades of existence. In January of this year, approximately 135 employees at Amazon’s Manhattan office were laid off. On top of this, more than 100 employees have been laid off in the New York area, and there are signs that further layoffs may be coming in the coming weeks.

It is worth mentioning that in addition to the above factors, there are other factors that may have contributed to this wave of layoffs, such as changes in immigration policy under President Trump and broader economic uncertainty.

But many executives pointed to artificial intelligence as a key force behind the restructuring. Citigroup, for example, has officially declared that artificial intelligence will revolutionize the way work is performed, and UPS CEO Carol Tomei has expressed a similar sentiment. However, even labor market data shows little evidence that AI is the main cause of these layoffs.