OpenAI’s chair is ‘optimistic’ about how AI will change work, and pointed to Excel to explain why

OpenAI chair Bret Taylor has used Microsoft Excel to explain why he’s “optimistic” that people will learn to work with AI, amid a wave of anxiety among knowledge workers who fear the tech will replace them.

Taylor, who also leads the AI startup Sierra and previously held top roles at Salesforce, Facebook, and X, said there would be “really disruptive and tumultuous” five years for “some jobs.”

But he said Microsoft Excel, which debuted in 1985, automated many tasks…