Becoming Your Own Expert on Pay

Before asking her boss for a raise, the manager checked in with someone knowledgeable about salaries in her field. No, it wasn’t a colleague—it was ChatGPT, which in four minutes told her the average compensation benchmarks for her industry, and offered guidance on how to phrase her request.

Welcome to compensation negotiations in 2026. Employees who previously might never have heard of a pay band are coming to the table with encyclopedic knowledge of compensation for their roles, catching managers off guard. “What used to be insider knowledge is now accessible in seconds,” says Tom McMullen, senior client partner at Korn Ferry. “It’s fundamentally changing the tone of negotiations.”

To be sure, some workers have always come in with sharp negotiation tactics. But experts say the overall shift in the dynamic of compensation conversations is enormous. By prompting their AI platform, workers can instantly see everything from pay benchmarks and negotiation strategies to explanations of complex, formerly opaque reward structures. “We’ve gone from not talking about compensation to sharing everything,” adds McMullen.

AI is not the only culprit. Much of the compensation data available to AI is driven by post-pandemic legislative changes to pay-transparency laws; the internet has been flooded with U.S.-centric compensation numbers. “It’s an unintended consequence of putting all that data out into the world under transparency guidelines,” says Bryan Ackermann, head of AI strategy and transformation at Korn Ferry.  “It surprises me not one little bit.”

Typically, employees and candidates are asking specific, pointed questions about everything from total rewards to internal parity—terms that were tossed around HR exclusively, not the water cooler. Their inquiries require managers to sharpen their skills. For example, a worker might question the gap between external salary data and the company’s pay rates. “Often, organizations have not adequately equipped their managers and HR staff to answer these questions,” says McMullen. Simply put, AI is quickly exposing training gaps around compensation discussions.

Of course, employee findings are not necessarily accurate. Some workers anchor their negotiations to external-compensation data, which can be a far cry from internal budget realities. This can set up a difficult dynamic: Employees are more proactive and confident, and negotiation dynamics can intensify. In one common scenario, workers are putting a dollar amount on their degree and years of experience that doesn’t necessarily correspond to their worth in the marketplace. “They’re looking at the wrong indicators,” says benefits expert Ron Seifert, senior client partner at Korn Ferry—overlooking traits like performance, unique skills, and potential.

The leverage shift is a reminder that firms need to adopt a strong and sensible pay-compensation program, one that projects a story employees can understand, rather than dodging questions. Along those lines, it makes sense to lean into the increased awareness of these employees. “The snowball is rolling down the hill, and you’re not going to stop it,” says Seifert. Managers can expect employees to be prepared to discuss topics that are linked to compensation in their minds, like development opportunities. The shift also can motivate firms to modernize reward strategies, improve internal equity, and create balanced conversations between employees and leaders. “Compensation is no longer a black box—it’s a conversation,” says McMullen. 

Learn more about Korn Ferry’s Total Rewards capabilities.

Read more This Week in Leadership articles