OpenAI's CFO says AI is replacing some jobs, but many are mundane ones

Sep 16, 2026 11:01 AM - 2 hours ago 3

Sarah Friar, main financial serviceman of OpenAI Inc., during a media circuit of the Stargate AI information halfway successful Abilene, Texas, US, connected Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. Stargate is simply a collaboration of OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank, pinch promotional support from President Donald Trump, to build information centers and different infrastructure for artificial intelligence passim the

OpenAI CFO Sarah Friar said that AI is reducing the request for some workers, but only repetitive ones.

In a Tuesday question and reply pinch CNBC's Jim Cramer connected "Mad Money," Friar addressed AI usage for efficiency astatine OpenAI, utilizing her ain finance section arsenic an example.

"There is nary uncertainty we are doing things pinch our ain products wrong of finance, for example, that do limit the number of group we need," Friar told Cramer. "But successful galore cases it's for jobs that I don't deliberation of arsenic awesome jobs, frankly."

Friar pointed to in installments checks arsenic 1 example. OpenAI's procurement cognition was conducting them astatine an yearly complaint of 2,800 past year, she said.

"That in installments cheque is simply a beautiful mundane portion of work," Friar said. "Do you want a inferior expert doing that, aliases tin we get a very intelligent exemplary to do it for us?"

"I deliberation it's really enabling group to do much activity astatine the edge, much activity wherever intelligence is needed," Friar added. "And past you get a batch of the rote worldly done by the exemplary and really done astatine astir apt a amended standard and pinch much accuracy, frankly."

The financial payoff was significant: Friar said the costs per cheque fell from $200 per cheque to astir 17 cents.

"That is simply a awesome ROI for a CFO," Friar added.

Friar's comments travel arsenic immoderate starring AI figures rumor overmuch starker warnings astir the technology's effect connected employment. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has said AI could destruct half of entry-level white-collar jobs, while Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize-winning machine intelligence known arsenic a "godfather of AI," precocious said specified predictions were "probably right."

Hinton said AI still fails astatine immoderate tasks, but cautioned that the exertion is improving quickly.

"We're successful the very early stages," Hinton told Bernie Sanders successful an question and reply successful November 2025. "This is simply a new technology. It's getting amended very fast."

Katherine Li is simply a newsman connected Business Insider's West Coast business news team. She covers career, the early of work, and really AI is changing hiring practices and workplace trends.Previously, she was a newsroom chap who wrote world breaking news and produced newsletters for Semafor. Before that, she wrote astir ambiance policies for The Lever, covered the AAPI organization for the SF Chronicle arsenic a freelancer, and wrote astir the 2019 Hong Kong protests arsenic an intern for The New York Times.She is an alumna of the Graduate School of Journalism astatine UC Berkeley and a postgraduate of the world publicity programme astatine Hong Kong Baptist University pinch minors successful French and English literature. Email Katherine astatine [email protected] and travel her connected Bluesky @katherineli.bsky.social.