The Evolving Pay Conversation: Transparency, AI and Employee Expectations

Salary ranges may be expected by applicants regardless of law requirements: According to a recent report based on thousands of job postings across the U.S. from workplace insights platform Monster, 60% of workers said they won’t apply for a job if the salary range isn’t listed. However, even the industries that are most transparent about pay like tech and retail include salary information in only about 1 in 5 job postings. As applicants and employees alike place increasing emphasis on compensation, leaders are starting to fully understand the need to meet those demands. Despite a strong legislative push to make pay transparency standard practice — with 18 states already requiring salary disclosure in job postings, according to HR management and software company Paycor — that’s not the primary factor driving organizations to be more open about pay. Instead, Monster’s report found that market competition is increasingly fueling pay transparency, with many employers in cities without disclosure laws voluntarily including salary ranges to attract talent. Michigan does not have any pay disclosure requirements, but it may be better marketing if employers did so anyhow.

Source: EBN 8/6/26

Applicants and employees negotiating salaries with AI generated information: As AI becomes embedded in the workplace, compensation conversations are changing. More employees are entering discussions with salary ranges generated by tools like ChatGPT or Gemini, often assuming those numbers reflect objective market truth. On the surface, that feels empowering. In practice, it’s creating a new tension between AI-generated expectations and the operational realities leaders manage every day. AI can inform compensation decisions, but it cannot replace the human judgment required to make them fair, sustainable, and aligned to business strategy. Leaders who lose sight of that risk eroding trust, culture and retention. AI tools aggregate data from inconsistent and often outdated sources. The result is wide variability in output, even for the same role. Employees may see a benchmark of $95,000 and assume they are underpaid, while the business can only support $82,000 for that role. Don’t dismiss immediately the AI generated info. Use them as an entry point for a more transparent conversation. The goal is to provide clarity around how compensation decisions are made, how a role is defined, how performance is evaluated, what the current budget allows, and the opportunities available for growth and advancement.

Source: Entrepreneur 8/5/26

By ASE Staff, courtesy of SBAM-approved partner, ASE.