Leadership at Lithuania-based marketing automation firm Omnisend tried many of the usual tactics to get employees to use AI. They created games and videos to help the team get more familiar with AI tools and capabilities. They also hosted monthly “AI days,” asking employees to clear their calendars to spend time experimenting with the technology.
“It worked for a while until we realized we’re hitting a wall, because now we have activity and productivity, but we don’t necessarily have impact,” Bernard Meyer, head of AI operations at Omnisend, told Fortune.
To start moving toward the measurable business impact they felt would be necessary to truly transform the company for the AI era, they added a new initiative: offering quarterly salary increases for employees who use AI in ways that create measurable business impact. They’re not looking for causal usage of AI tools, but specifically for employees to discover and use AI in ways that move the needle for the company at large. For Q1, the first quarter with the initiative in place, just over half of the company’s 246 employees qualified and received raises between 2% and 4% so far.
Speaking with Fortune, Omnisend cofounder and CEO Rytis Lauris expressed wanting “to pay higher salaries for highly effective people.” He also emphasized his belief that the labor market will reward those who learn how to use AI well—at the expense of those who don’t.
