How AI can help boost salaries for employees

Artificial intelligence’s (AI) popularity and widespread usage may have sparked concerns and controversy around job availability and affect financial compensation for the worse, but a CEO believes that AI’s replacement of jobs can help boost pay.

Sander van’t Noordende, CEO of talent company Randstad, told CNBC’s “Squawk Box Europe” that leaders in many organisations are “going to be paying [personnel] more to do a job that adds even more value.”

Using AI can help employees use their time more productively and in a more impactful way for companies, van’t Noordende explained.

“AI increases productivity and helps you do a better and a faster job so that you can spend more time with your clients, in our case with our candidates, with your colleagues, venturing into new areas so it’s freeing up time to do more high-value things,” said van’t Noordende. AI will not be able to fully replace human employees, he shared, acknowledging that the technology has immense potential and capabilities, but “cannot do everything.” That means there is always something else that humans can do beyond AI, he explained.

Some hold that the job impact of AI may be much smaller than the effect of other economic issues, such as slower growth and higher costs for businesses — so these factors might be far bigger threats for workers.

It may also take more time before the full influence of AI is felt by employees, van’t Noordende explained. Just one in eight companies is currently using the technology ‘at scale,’ he noted, while other employers are still experimenting.

READ MORE: AI’s impact will not affect multiple jobs in 2026

“For AI to really get absorbed at scale, get implemented at scale will take a while,” he said. “We are sort of at the peak of the hype cycle now, you know, everybody’s totally excited, but it takes more to get AI at scale in a responsible way, and that will take time.”