Unst & Young allocates $100 million to compensation for AI utilization
Evaluating human unique competencies such as leadership and judgment
Critical utilization rather than using more AI
Global accounting and consulting firm EY announced that it will invest $100 million in compensation for employees this year. The compensation is for employees who demonstrate human-specific capabilities such as adaptability, innovation, and judgment.
The plan is to immediately pay up to $500 per person for relatively small contributions and pay up to $25,000 in cash to employees or teams who have made substantial changes to the company.
There are three main criteria for compensation payment proposed by EY. They include ‘leadership’, ‘change that leads to measurable results’, and ‘impact on the company’. The intention is to provide exceptional compensation to leaders who demonstrate leadership, lead meaningful changes through innovation, and have a positive influence on the company with good judgment.
In fact, EY is also the company that has been actively introducing artificial intelligence (AI). The company invested $1.4 billion in 2023 to launch its own AI platform ‘EY.ai ‘. It also introduced its own interactive AI, ‘EYQ’, by combining its expertise and AI technology. EY was also the first in the industry to introduce AI agents to audit work.
It is analyzed that the reason why EY came up with a reward for this “human ability” is that the results depend on “who” and “how” rather than simply using a lot of AI.
In fact, the results of another consulting firm, KPMG, conducted a study at a job site with researchers from the University of Austin, Texas, support this judgment.
The researchers asked 523 newcomers to society in the United States to perform specific tasks using AI agents. The results of the AI agent performing its own work without human intervention were used as a “baseline” and the results derived by the participants using the “AI agent” were evaluated.
According to AI utilization, the evaluation results were divided into three categories: AI amplifiers (AI Amplifiers, 50.1%), AI Delegators (AI Delegators, 25.8%), and AI Apprentices (AI Apprentices, 24.1%). The researchers found that even if the level of knowledge and skills is the same, there may be differences in the results of using AI. The difference in the results was whether they went through the process of ‘supervising the work flow’, ‘defining the problem well’, ‘using expertise’, ‘critical evaluation of the results’, and ‘repeating it’.
Meanwhile, this point is highlighted at the actual recruitment site, and personnel managers are putting more weight on “human qualities.” According to PwC’s analysis of more than 1 billion job openings in 27 countries and regions around the world this year, companies are demanding more “human abilities” such as judgment, creativity, and leadership.
