More Than Half of U.S. Companies Are Cutting Worker Pay to Fund AI, Study Finds

A survey finds employers are cutting compensation—and even jobs—to fund AI investments.

BY KIT EATON @KITEATON

Illustration: Adobe Stock

AI is hyped as the business cure-all, but deploying this revolutionary new tech doesn’t necessarily come cheap. In fact, it can be an expensive process requiring deep pockets. New data underlines this by showing many U.S. companies are doing the equivalent of searching down the back of the financial sofa to find cash to spend on AI rollouts. 

One easy source of this cash is to cut back on worker compensation. This decision may prompt comments and criticism about the ethics of decreasing spending on human workers in order to increase funding for digital ones. That may make you reflect on your own company’s race to deploy AI.

New data from online resume service ResumeBuilder shows that 54 percent of the nearly 900 U.S. companies they surveyed said that they are already reducing, or will reduce, worker compensation so that they free up capital for AI spending in 2026. The cuts are at least coming from ancillary compensation schemes before hitting workers base salary: 61 percent of the cuts are being made to bonuses, 60 percent from equity or stock awards, and 59 from raises. But 53 percent are still going to be coming from benefits and 43 percent from base salaries—schemes that reward workers at the core of most employment contracts. 

Worse than this, 26 percent of the survey respondents will have actually laid off workers to pay for AI investments by the end of 2026. There’s a long-running worry among many workers, already proving true for some industries, that AI will eventually replace human staff. But this new data adds an extra concern to the list: not that AI will take over people’s jobs, but that employers will choose to spend on AI instead of employing real people. These findings “point to a workforce bearing the direct financial cost of corporate AI ambitions,” ResumeBuilders’ report noted, adding that things may only get worse. “According to the business leaders surveyed, the pressure is unlikely to ease, as the vast majority expect further AI investment at the expense of employees.”

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A related ethical question about over-relying on AI emerged from a study by two U.K. business researchers who found “something more complicated and surprisingly more human,” when they looked into AI use by the next generation of executives, still studying in business school. Concerns about AI use in higher education have usually centered on possible student fraud, or how it will unsettle traditional educational norms.

But the research uncovered a handful of deeper concerns. 

Firstly, worries over who gets the best AI. The students surveyed for the study said they had concerns over who was getting access to powerful AI tools, and possibly more “accurate” output, compared to people who were only allowed free tools. 

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