OpenAI seeks economists who can adapt as AI reshapes the jobs market

NEW DELHI: When the job market gets an AI makeover, even the job of studying it needs to keep changing.

OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, is looking to expand its economic research team with people who can combine strong analytical skills with flexibility, collaboration and independent thinking.

The team is led by OpenAI chief economist Ronnie Chatterji, who said the rapid pace of artificial intelligence development means researchers must be prepared to work on questions that can change quickly. Speaking to Business Insider, Chatterji said the team studies how AI is affecting workers, businesses, institutions and the wider economy.

“The job description is changing a lot,” OpenAI chief economist Ronnie Chatterji said, highlighting how quickly the research agenda is evolving alongside advances in AI.

Chatterji said the team’s work broadly covers three areas.

The first is understanding how AI is already affecting jobs and workers. This includes examining how businesses are responding to the technology and what it means for employment.

The second focuses on how companies are adopting AI and restructuring their organisations around it. As businesses introduce increasingly capable AI tools, researchers need to understand not just whether the technology works, but how it changes the way companies operate.

The third area looks further ahead, examining the possible economic consequences of increasingly advanced AI systems.

That can include subjects that were not previously central to economic research. Chatterji cited recursive self-improvement, referring to AI systems potentially becoming capable of improving themselves, as one example of a topic that could rapidly become important.

For prospective hires, technical expertise is only part of the equation. Chatterji said candidates need to be comfortable tackling questions without straightforward answers.

“You have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable,” OpenAI chief economist Ronnie Chatterji said, describing the mindset required to work on fast-moving questions surrounding AI and the economy.

The team also values people who can adapt as its priorities shift. A research question that appears relatively niche today could become central tomorrow as AI capabilities develop.

Collaboration is another key requirement. The economic research team works with OpenAI employees as well as governments and universities, reflecting the broad economic and policy questions raised by increasingly powerful AI systems.

Chatterji said researchers are also expected to identify important questions themselves rather than simply follow a fixed research agenda. That means deciding which problems deserve attention and who could benefit from the findings.

Chatterji joined OpenAI in 2024 after working in government and academia. Before moving to the AI company, he served in several roles in the US government and was involved in the Biden administration’s $52 billion CHIPS programme.

He also served as acting deputy director of the National Economic Council and was chief economist at the US Commerce Department. He is a professor of business and public policy at Duke University.

At OpenAI, Chatterji leads an economic research group of roughly a dozen people. The team includes economists, data scientists, business professionals, former teachers and former government workers, and he is looking to add more members.

The diversity of backgrounds reflects the nature of the problem the team is tackling. AI’s impact on the economy is not confined to one industry or discipline, making the ability to work across fields increasingly valuable.

As AI continues to alter how people work and how companies organise themselves, OpenAI’s researchers face a moving target. For those looking to join the team, the ability to keep asking the right questions may be just as important as knowing the answers.