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Should you pay people more for using AI?
3 MINUTE READ
THE BREAKDOWN
Pay more for AI skills?
Unsurprisingly, this is one of the most debated topics inside the community right now, but equally interesting is what companies put in writing.
Qorvo’s filing for fiscal 2025 gives an AI objective a 20% weight in its performance share units. The objective is exploration and deployment of AI tools to enhance organisational productivity, and the committee marked it achieved. Recursion Pharmaceuticals gave a goal to lead the data and AI revolution in drug discovery a 16.67% weight in its fiscal 2024 annual bonus, and it paid out in full.
Both goals reward what the company gets from AI. Neither rewards what one person knows how to do. These are executive plans, and I haven’t found independent data on pay for AI skills further down the organisation.
(Guess it'll up to me to surface it, right? Challenge accepted.)
My personal view is that proficiency is hard to measure and easy to claim, while scope is easier to see.
If someone absorbs enough responsibility to eliminate the need for another hire, we should reward that. That doesn’t mean creating a whole new pay band for one person. it just means positioning them higher up in their current one.
What's your view? Hit reply and prove me wrong.
As we approach performance & pay review season, key questions I would ask myself if I were a line manager
What work does this person own now that they didn’t own before?
What output can I look at that came from that work, and where is it?
Did the team avoid a hire or leave a role unfilled because of it?
So, would you pay for the skill or for the result?
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INSIDE RANGE
Last week Alex Sommer showed Range members what an AI does when you ask it to price a job offer. In his demo company, the AI guessed all four numbers for a senior engineer in Lisbon. Given a memory to check, it cited the decision behind each answer. It also caught a hiring plan still using an old benchmark.
Members left with a starter kit they can set up in ten minutes. This month, they build theirs in pairs in one of three workshops.
Some members couldn't wait for their workshop. They already built their second brain!
ON THE RADAR
The UK Pensions Regulator says trustees stay accountable for their providers' AI. Published 29 October. Trustees should get assurance that the provider governs and controls its AI. AI use alone doesn't create a general duty to tell members about every use. Your provider's chatbot is now your due diligence. I'd ask for its AI policy in writing before the next renewal. Read → the guidance
In jobs most exposed to AI, a year of schooling now pays less. Published 26 October. A Universidad Torcuato Di Tella paper, not yet peer reviewed, uses US earnings data to June 2026. Since ChatGPT launched, the return to schooling has fallen in exposed jobs. The return to experience has risen early on and fallen after 25 years. I'd check whether your pay ranges for those roles still pay for the degree or for the years. Read → the paper
MY TAKE
An AI can already take the notes and chase the actions. Once it answers employees' routine questions too, those jobs stop being why we should continue hiring benefits people for. Hire people with good judgement, those that can explain which provider to trust and what to push back on at renewal.
If I went back in-house, I'd want my benefits team spending its week there. I'd expect a broker to earn its fee there too.
RECENT EDITIONS
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