Making Money 4.0: Controversy over salary increase when "1 person does the job of 3" thanks to AI

The "invisible personnel"

Earlier this year, Open AI CEO Sam Altman asserted: “We believe that by 2025 we could see the first AI Agents entering the workforce and dramatically changing corporate productivity.”

Indeed, this is no longer a distant prospect, AI is present and permeating every corner of business operations. From dynamic technology startups to service and manufacturing companies, AI is proving its role as an effective "virtual assistant".

In many companies, specialized AI tools are changing the way traditional work is done. Software testing teams no longer spend hours manually drafting documents or scripts, but instead focus on optimizing the process so that AI can handle it automatically.

Customer care and solution development departments use AI to analyze user data, gain deeper understanding of needs, and make effective personalized recommendations.

Le Hoang, Founder of Hyperwork, a company specializing in providing workspace solutions, shared: "Almost every department is applying AI in their work, such as the management team applying AI to synthesize internal information, the internet and consult ideas.

The HR team trains AI to quickly answer employee questions about company policies, or the design department uses AI to check spelling and technicalities before going to the printing stage."

Almost every department is applying AI in their work.

Le Hoang Founder of Hyperwork

In that context, it is undeniable that productivity is skyrocketing with the help of AI.

Nguyen Viet Hung, CEO of an AI application software development company in Hanoi , said: "When applying specialized AI to the workflow, software development speed increases three times, even four times. Error rates are also reduced by about half."

Nguyen Thi Trang, CEO of Pisa Solutions LLC, also shared impressive numbers: "The performance of the Pisa team has made great strides. When employees have mastered the application of AI, the average performance increases by at least 1.5 times and in some specific fields such as content production, this number can be up to 3 times."

According to Ms. Trang, the company's human resources team has proactively applied specialized AI in their work. Specifically, the programming team has applied AI to analyze designs, program product development, and test errors in the coding process.

Or the customer care team built an automated chatbot to answer customer needs, the marketing team changed the production method by applying available AI tools to create images, content, audio, thereby reducing product creation time.

Nguyen Thi Trang, CEO of Pisa Solutions LLC, assessed that the average productivity of each employee at the company has increased 1.5-3 times thanks to AI (Photo: Hung Anh).

However, the sharp increase in productivity raises a big question: How to solve the salary problem?

One person does 3 jobs thanks to AI: Will salaries increase?

As employees produce more value in less time thanks to AI, will their incomes increase accordingly? This is not an easy question to answer, and business owners are taking different approaches to this reality.

Nguyen Viet Hung, with experience running a technology business, offered a realistic perspective. Hung admitted that AI significantly shortens product deployment time, changing expectations about progress. However, he also pointed out a potential pressure on the risk of "a good harvest, a bad price".

"When AI helps increase productivity, it will lead to businesses selling products cheaper to compete on price," Hung said.

Hung admits that AI significantly shortens product deployment time, changing expectations about progress.

This leads to his conclusion about the compensation story: "It's not that employees will triple their workload compared to before thanks to AI, but that they will triple their income."

Instead, Mr. Hung believes that the benefits will come indirectly: "They will also have better salary and bonus growth thanks to increased company revenue due to the advantages created by AI. This helps employees have more motivation to research and deeply apply AI to existing tasks."

At the same time, he also frankly expressed his views on the need to adapt in the current labor market context: "Human resources also understand that. They understand that if they keep doing things the old way, they will be the first to be reconsidered. Either you change or the business is forced to change you."

Talking about this issue, Mr. Nguyen Gia Hy, Co-founder of SkillPixel and AIFicient affirmed that: "Using AI to achieve high productivity is gradually becoming a basic requirement, not a special reward achievement in the current context".

Mr. Nguyen Gia Hy, Co-founder of SkillPixel and AIFicient, affirmed that using AI to achieve high productivity is gradually becoming a basic requirement (Photo: Thanh Dong).

Mr. Hy added that the "floor" for labor productivity has changed. In the past, if employees worked 2-3 times more productively, they would be recognized and rewarded. But now, with the support of AI, achieving such high productivity levels is considered the norm.

With his personal perspective and current experience, the CEO of these two startups said: "This is similar to a few years ago, if you cannot use Word or Excel, it is almost impossible to compete in the modern office environment."

In this view, rewards come when employees not only use AI, but use it effectively to produce results that are superior to those in their positions, not simply surpassing their yesterday’s selves. The competitive pressures and need to continually learn to stay relevant are evident in today’s workplace.

Hyperwork founder Le Hoang looks at the problem from the perspective of parallel benefits and proven effectiveness: "Before, without AI, human resources still had to do manual work. With AI, their work becomes easier, and they have time for other tasks.

As productivity increases, they have time to take on additional tasks to increase their income. But the company also no longer needs employees to do manual work. This is a win-win benefit."

Therefore, Mr. Hoang affirmed: "The answer is yes, if you can prove your work efficiency, you can increase your salary. He emphasized that AI is a tool, and if you can prove your outstanding results, a salary increase is completely justified according to company policy."

Meanwhile, Mr. Pham Duc Tien, Director of Bidding Ecosystem Joint Stock Company, said that the company is currently encouraging the use of AI, especially with the programming and marketing technical teams.

Faced with the reality of increased productivity of the programming and marketing teams, Mr. Tien shared: "Whether or not there is an increase in income will depend on the policy of each department. For example, for the technical programming team to increase salary, they must increase their skill level through an assessment test, not just about AI.

But for the marketing team, whose income is directly proportional to work efficiency, if AI is applied effectively and creates clear changes, income will increase.

Mr. Pham Duc Tien, Director of Bidding Ecosystem Joint Stock Company, said that increasing income in the context of AI application will depend on each department's own policy (Photo: Character provided).

Mr. Tien also gave an example of how if the marketing team uses AI support and achieves outstanding results in terms of content, the number of views increases strongly, then the royalties of the article will increase accordingly.

AI skills become the standard for adaptation

Although most opinions show that employees will not receive a direct salary increase thanks to AI application, reality has shown that employees who know how to effectively apply AI are expected to be ahead of the trend and create a competitive advantage in the current context.

"Personnel who use AI early will have more advantages in synthesizing information, solving problems and can make a more outstanding impression than other personnel," said Mr. Le Hoang.

AI skills are creating competitive advantages in the current context (Illustration: CV).

Ms. Trang asserts that there is a link between AI-enhanced productivity and employee income. The CEO gives a specific example of a marketing specialist at Pisa who can now complete work faster, more efficiently, and spend time on more strategic, creative tasks thanks to AI.

"The increase in efficiency thanks to AI brings more effective marketing campaigns, thereby increasing the total revenue of the company's products and projects. Thereby increasing income and development of the staff," Ms. Trang shared.

She emphasized that for employees who see AI as a "companion" and apply it effectively in their work, the company will create conditions for them to receive a worthy reward through the company's growth. In addition, Ms. Trang also committed that when work efficiency increases dramatically thanks to AI, the salary of employees will be significantly adjusted.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/cong-nghe/kiem-tien-40-tranh-cai-chuyen-tang-luong-khi-1-nguoi-lam-bang-3-nho-ai-20250521005533813.htm