Use Gen AI to Slash Your Costs
In a rapidly changing world of work, organizations are increasingly turning to Gen AI to optimize operations, slash costs, and redefine the role of human resources. In an engaging conversation with Scott Cawood, CEO of WorldatWork, a nonprofit that specializes in total rewards optimization across 162 countries, the opportunities and challenges of Gen AI in the compensation and benefits space came into sharp focus.
Riding The Wave Of Explosive Gen AI Adoption
WorldatWork’s member platform, Engage, has become a fascinating bellwether for the pace of Gen AI adoption. According to Cawood, the conversations among compensation and benefits professionals have been “explosive,” moving swiftly from tentative questions to active knowledge-sharing and real-world test cases. What began with basic automation of routine tasks is evolving into a more sophisticated use of Gen AI to tackle massive data sets that no human could process in the same time frame.
Cawood emphasized that the conversation is no longer just about building new AI tools. Instead, companies are focusing on rethinking their existing data through the AI lens, leveraging what they already have to uncover insights faster and more comprehensively. This capability is critical in compensation analysis, where identifying pay gaps, predicting disengagement, and tailoring retention strategies can make or break an organization’s ability to compete for talent.
The sheer scale of activity shows that organizations recognize the necessity of Gen AI, not just for innovation but for survival. As Cawood put it, “If you’ve not spent time on AI as of now, you’re already behind.”
Balancing Innovation With Anxiety
Despite the exciting progress, anxiety about Gen AI’s impact on job security is a very real undercurrent. Cawood noted that about 55 percent of WorldatWork’s member companies are already providing AI training for their HR and total rewards teams. Yet, even with this proactive approach, concerns remain widespread, especially among those whose jobs involve more routine tasks.
Importantly, Cawood did not sugarcoat the risk. Job displacement will happen, particularly for roles that fail to evolve with digital skill demands. However, he remains optimistic that AI will ultimately create more jobs than it destroys, particularly for professionals who can master the critical skill of deciding when to deploy humans versus AI for a given task.
Supervising AI systems, coaching them, and refining their outputs will be essential future competencies. As Cawood pointed out, AI will not operate in a vacuum; it must be managed with the same care and nuance required to lead human teams. The future will belong to those who can navigate this hybrid landscape, blending human judgment with machine efficiency.
Unlocking The Power Of Predictive Analytics
Perhaps the most exciting frontier, according to Cawood, lies in using Gen AI to understand employees at a deeper level than ever before. Historically, employers have known far less about their employees than companies like Target or Walmart know about their customers. Gen AI offers the promise of reversing that dynamic.
By analyzing vast troves of compensation, performance, and engagement data, organizations can predict employee turnover, diagnose disengagement early, and even tailor benefits and incentive plans to individual needs. The potential savings are staggering—not only in reduced turnover costs but also in the productivity gains from a more engaged and aligned workforce.
However, Cawood issued a strong caution about rushing headlong into this data-driven future. With sensitive information like salaries, social security numbers, and health benefits involved, the risk of privacy breaches looms large. Many organizations are rapidly updating their AI usage policies to guard against unintended data exposure, but the margin for error remains thin. The mantra is clear: start small, with known data sets, and build expertise gradually rather than risking catastrophic mistakes.
Charting The Future Of Compensation With AI
Looking ahead, Cawood sees the future of compensation and benefits professionals as secure—but only for those willing to adapt. While routine tasks will increasingly be automated, core technical skills in rewards design, benefits structuring, and labor market analysis will remain in high demand. The new premium will be on digital literacy, strategic judgment, and the ability to integrate AI tools seamlessly into decision-making processes.
WorldatWork’s emphasis on hands-on experimentation is a telling sign of this shift. At their 2024 conference in San Diego, they introduced an AI playground that allowed attendees to experiment with real datasets. The experience was so successful that it will be expanded at the 2025 conference in Orlando, where the organization received an impressive 60 AI-related session proposals—up sharply from the previous year.
Predictive analytics, Cawood believes, will be the next major breakthrough. From forecasting turnover to identifying the true drivers of engagement, Gen AI will empower compensation professionals to move from reactive management to proactive strategy. But as he warned, AI should never be adopted for its own sake. Every deployment must have a clearly defined benefit, whether it is cost savings, risk mitigation, or enhanced employee experience.
Ultimately, slashing costs through Gen AI is not about replacing people with machines. It is about empowering organizations to make smarter, faster decisions that unlock the full potential of both their data and their people. In the hands of skilled professionals who understand both the promise and the perils of the technology, Gen AI will not just cut costs—it will build a stronger, more resilient future of work.
Key Take-Away
Success depends on blending human judgment with machine efficiency, requiring new competencies to supervise and integrate AI tools effectively. Share on XImage credit: Kaboompics.com/pexels
Dr. Gleb Tsipursky was named “Office Whisperer” by The New York Times for helping leaders overcome frustrations with hybrid work and Generative AI. He serves as the CEO of the future-of-work consultancy Disaster Avoidance Experts. Dr. Gleb wrote seven best-selling books, and his two most recent ones are Returning to the Office and Leading Hybrid and Remote Teams and ChatGPT for Leaders and Content Creators: Unlocking the Potential of Generative AI. His cutting-edge thought leadership was featured in over 650 articles and 550 interviews in Harvard Business Review, Inc. Magazine, USA Today, CBS News, Fox News, Time, Business Insider, Fortune, The New York Times, and elsewhere. His writing was translated into Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Polish, Korean, French, Vietnamese, German, and other languages. His expertise comes from over 20 years of consulting, coaching, and speaking and training for Fortune 500 companies from Aflac to Xerox. It also comes from over 15 years in academia as a behavioral scientist, with 8 years as a lecturer at UNC-Chapel Hill and 7 years as a professor at Ohio State. A proud Ukrainian American, Dr. Gleb lives in Columbus, Ohio.