Korn Ferry Survey Finds Pay Models Diverging Across AI Specialists, Existing Roles, and AI-Ready Leaders

Global organizational consulting firm Korn Ferry (NYSE: KFY; Korn Ferry Japan, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Japan Representative: Junichi Takinami) has released the latest edition of its Global Total Rewards Pulse Survey. The survey found that approaches to compensation are beginning to diverge across three groups: AI specialists, existing roles, and AI-ready leaders. The survey was conducted online in February 2026 and collected responses from 4,252 organizations across 133 countries. Respondents were professionals in corporate human resources and total rewards, representing a broad range of companies and organizations by size, region, and ownership structure. The study analyzed how advances in AI are beginning to change job content and compensation approaches across three talent groups: specialists whose core skills are AI technologies themselves; existing roles whose work content and job value are changing as AI is introduced; and AI-ready leaders who drive these changes. For specialist roles built around AI as a core skill, demand continues to grow for AI engineers, data scientists, machine learning specialists, and similar professionals. In these roles, compensation premiums of around 10% to 15% compared with equivalent jobs are becoming increasingly common. At the same time, because these roles are evolving very quickly and external compensation surveys and market data are struggling to keep pace, companies are placing greater emphasis on internal judgment in addition to external benchmarks. For existing roles affected by AI, 76% of respondents said they believe AI’s impact on jobs is accelerating, while roles that are clearly affected at present remain limited to around 5% to 10% of all jobs. Although AI adoption is changing work content and job value in some cases, reductions in base pay have generally remained at around 5% to 10%. Many companies are prioritizing job redesign, role redefinition, reskilling, and upskilling over compensation cuts. For leaders driving AI transformation, demand is rising for AI-ready leaders who can promote AI-enabled change across the organization. Especially in the early stages of transformation, more companies are reviewing compensation premiums and incentive designs for these leaders. Companies are also increasingly incorporating business outcomes from digitalization and AI use into short- and long-term incentive metrics. The survey suggests that not all jobs are affected by AI in the same way. However, compensation thinking is beginning to split across three layers: AI specialist roles, existing roles that need redesign due to AI’s impact, and the leaders who guide these changes. The progress of AI is accelerating a shift from traditional job-based compensation models to skill- and capability-based compensation models. As a result, rewards leaders are expected to have more advanced data analysis capabilities, a deeper understanding of AI, and the ability to make decisions amid high uncertainty. Yasuyo Okada, Country Leader of the Digital Practice at Korn Ferry Japan, commented: “AI is not simply something that replaces human work. It changes the content of work, creates new specialist roles, and requires humans to decide how to make use of them. What this survey shows is the importance of the perspective of how AI and people can coexist, and how work and rewards should be redesigned. We are entering an era in which how companies position AI within their business strategy will determine their competitiveness.” Korn Ferry is a global organizational consulting firm headquartered in Los Angeles, United States. The firm supports clients in organizational design and talent placement, provides consulting on employee treatment, development, and motivation, and helps people advance their careers by deepening their expertise.