AI adoption in HR by the numbers
95% of senior business executives have invested in AI yet report 45% of their employees aren’t ready.
The numbers get even more dismal for HR.
A recent Gartner survey of execs ranked HR leaders dead last in AI savviness, while only 8% of CHROs believe their managers have the skills to use AI for HR effectively.
OUCH.
Meanwhile, most HR professionals want AI for HR solutions, according to Payscale’s Compensation Best Practices Report.
Roughly 20% are “totally onboard” with artificial intelligence for compensation, while another 50% are “cautiously optimistic.”
- 71% want AI for benchmarking
- 68% trust AI for recommending pay increases
- 65% think it can handle legislative compliance
- 66% believe it will help with policy documentation, education, and communications
What’s behind this disconnect between HR and leadership? Why don’t CHROs think their managers can handle AI?
Chalk it up HR’s reputation as “the people function.” Let them manage PTO requests and onboarding. Give them the “privilege” of coordinating team-building exercises.
But leave the technology up to the smart people.
We’re not trying to be harsh — just realistic.
That's the rub: HR wants AI. Leadership isn’t signing off because they don’t think you’re ready. Only you can prove them dead wrong.
Ready to fight these misconceptions? We have the cheat code.
Start small and think bigly
You need to start somewhere (anywhere really), so how about using generative AI for HR tasks like writing job descriptions?
Many HR professionals are already doing it. It's exactly the type of low-risk activity AI does better than humans.
Did you know?
- 50% of job descriptions contain grammatical errors (unprofessional)
- 42% of companies rewrite JDs because they’re not attracting the right candidates (increasing time-to-fill)
- 38% contain business jargon that repels qualified people (stop using words like “self-starter” and “ninja” for goodness sakes)
Review your work, sure. But nobody got into HR because they loved writing JDs. And even the most lovingly crafted job descriptions are a mess anyway.
ProTip: Once your manager sees what AI can do, getting budget approval for proper Job Description Management software becomes a whole lot easier.
Starting with AI job descriptions shows your CHRO what’s up. You’re not some Luddite. You’re already using artificial intelligence to speed up work.
Then, put a bug in your manager’s ear: have you heard about AI market pricing? It might solve some of our compensation issues and help our company more broadly.
AI needs to be more than flashy tech — it should solve actual business problems (how novel)
Last year’s WorldatWork conference buzzed with lofty AI promises. HR Brew’s hot take: compensation vendors jumped the shark with “AI agents for HR,” and HR professionals called their bluff.
We don’t necessarily disagree. Tech companies often offer the moon before they’ve built the rocket ship.
That’s precisely why Payscale has been so cautious. We don’t roll out AI solutions until they’re tried, tested, and true.
We painstakingly built Verse on the back of the industry’s most reliable real-time, HR-reported dataset (Payscale Peer).
Here’s the facts:
- Peer contains millions of jobs from 5,200+ companies (solid training data makes for great AI)
- We didn’t cut corners (we have more data scientists than other comp vendors have employees)
- Verse solves an actual problem (benchmarking jobs where no benchmarks exist)
Let’s break down how it works.
With our LARGE dataset as training material, Verse applies differentials to jobs (industry, company size, location) with the pinpoint precision only machine learning provides.
Don’t get confused. While other compensation vendors mash together old survey data and call them real-time benchmarks, Verse offers an entirely different experience — millions of salary data points processed, cleansed, and tabulated.
So, you get the real salary range for roles every time.
The problems Verse solves:
Benchmarking in low/no data markets
Say you’re trying to benchmark a Nurse Practitioner in Blackwater, Missouri.
You immediately run into difficulties. Why? No Nurse Practitioners are currently employed in Blackwater (Pop: 160).
What are your options? Take your best guess? Throw a dart at some salary ranges?
With Verse, you can easily benchmark this job. It identifies jobs in similar locations to deliver a strong pricing — even in markets with no data.
Job matching demystified
The perfect job match is elusive. HR professionals pore over job descriptions, feverishly searching for the right range.
But job matching is about confidence, not perfection. This is precisely what Verse provides.
With our tools, you’re not chasing the perfect match. Instead, you’re handed the best match on a silver platter.
Overcoming data dominance
In your market, a handful of mega corporations might dominate. Big Box Store Inc. floods the market with job postings.
Problem? You’re a mid-sized company (or growing Mom & Pop). You can’t (and shouldn’t) compete with Big Box Store.
Verse calculates company size, making sure larger employers don’t overwhelm your data.
Smart Price: one of the best AI tools for HR
While Verse assists with your thorniest benchmarking challenges, Payscale’s AI toolkit does so much more.
With Smart Price, powered by (yes) AI, benchmarking is easier. Begin by uploading job titles, summaries, and different job groups from Excel into Payfactors
Then, just follow these two steps (careful it gets complicated):
- Select the jobs (or job groups) to price
- Click “Next”
In 15 seconds, Smart Price automatically matches your jobs to Verse, taking the differentials above (location, industry) into account — it even offers a confidence score.
Give it a quick review and hit publish. Voila! You now have a complete catalog of benchmarked job.
Earning your CHRO’s trust: proving AI delivers ROI
Flashy AI features won’t impress your manager — results will. Your CHRO doesn’t care about buzzwords or futuristic promises. They care about productivity gains and defensible salary data. That’s where Payscale AI delivers, and how you prove your technology chops.
Smart Price cuts job pricing time by 93%. What used to take days now takes minutes. Those are the time savings that make leadership sit up.
Verse eliminates costly guesswork. No more throwing darts at salary ranges or overpaying new hires because you lack data. Just accurate, defensible benchmarks: even in markets with zero job postings.
AI that solves real business problems builds trust. When you walk into your CHRO’s office with faster pricing, lower comp costs, and better data, you’re not pitching AI — you’re proving ROI.
