While most companies tell employees to use AI without much incentive or clarity, Omnisend is doing the opposite: paying workers a raise for proving they can.
Starting in April, the London-based email and marketing automation platform will award employees a 2–4% salary increase for demonstrating measurable AI proficiency. The company has budgeted for all 250 employees to qualify at some point—though not everyone will get the raise in the first evaluation round, according to Bernard Meyer, Omnisend’s head of AI operations.
The Evaluation Criteria
The program isn’t about gut feelings or manager hunches. Employees must hit three concrete targets:
- Measurable time and cost savings generated by AI-assisted work
- Tangible business impact — specific, outcome-focused results from AI workflows they built or improved
- Adoption velocity — whether the AI workflow spreads to other team members and becomes standard practice
Meyer expects about 60% of employees to clear the bar in the first quarter. Re-evaluation happens every three months, so those who miss out in April get another shot in July.
Why This Matters
The salary-bump approach solves a specific problem: vague company directives to “be more productive with AI” don’t work. Meyer notes that most organizations tell employees to use AI but offer no concrete definition of success. The financial incentive removes the ambiguity. People know exactly what behavior the company values.
It also creates a hiring benchmark. New employees entering the team will be measured against the AI proficiency standards already set by existing bonus recipients. That turns AI competency from a “nice to have” into a baseline job requirement.
The Real Test
Meyer admits he doesn’t have a precise ROI calculation for the program yet. But he points to results from Omnisend’s sales team as proof of concept: their 24-hour lead follow-up rate jumped from 20% pre-AI to nearly 100% after deploying AI workflows.
That’s the outcome the company wants to replicate across departments—and the salary bump is the mechanism to do it.
The model is clean for operators: instead of hoping employees adopt AI, you make adoption financially rational. Instead of measuring phantom “productivity gains,” you measure concrete business results. It’s not a participation trophy. It’s performance-based compensation tied to a skill the market increasingly demands.
For solo founders and lean teams watching Omnisend’s move, the lesson is simpler: if AI proficiency matters to your business, the salary signal should reflect that. Pay for the behavior you want.