Companies tie promotions to AI skills, raising fairness concerns

Growing trend links career advancement to AI adoption

A wave of employers is making artificial intelligence proficiency a formal or informal requirement for career advancement, according to workers and industry observers interviewed by the BBC. Accenture CEO Julie Sweet stated in March that "if you want to get promoted, you've got to do the things that we do in order to operate at Accenture," explicitly tying AI use to advancement. Coinbase has already terminated engineers who failed to complete mandatory AI training requested by CEO Brian Armstrong.

Media reports indicate that Disney, Meta, JP Morgan, and KPMG have introduced "AI leaderboards" to track and rank employee usage of large language models and AI platforms. The push reflects executive urgency to demonstrate returns on AI investments, particularly given that 94% of companies have yet to see significant value from AI deployments, according to McKinsey research.

Workers question the value proposition

Duncan Trevithick, a 34-year-old marketing professional at an AI training data company in Spain, works under a bonus structure tied to AI usage. While the incentive appears straightforward, he sees a troubling dynamic: "The uncomfortable interpretation is that employees are being assessed on how effectively they can participate in their own redundancy."

Trevithick calculates that using AI to complete two days of work weekly doesn't translate to proportional compensation. "I do not receive two days off or a 40% pay rise. The higher output simply becomes the new baseline," he told the BBC. The productivity gains may help short-term promotion prospects, but he believes they ultimately demonstrate "how much of my job no longer requires me."

A senior executive at a large US consultancy, who requested anonymity, described a "two tier workforce" emerging at her firm. While no formal mandate exists, she observed that AI fluency now outweighs experience in advancement decisions. "Somebody that has 15, 20 years of experience and no AI fluency will be passed over for those that have, say, three years, but are fast with the tools," she said.

Legal but potentially problematic

Tina Chander, an employment lawyer at Weightmans, confirmed that employers can legally adjust performance expectations to include AI proficiency. However, she identified fairness concerns: "If an employee is effectively doing more because AI has made them more efficient, should they be rewarded differently? Or are they effectively making themselves redundant, thus acting as a disincentive to be productive?"

Chander advised companies to establish clear policies, training programs, and boundaries to avoid disputes over fairness, performance expectations, and job security. The stakes will rise in January 2027 when UK employees gain the right to file unfair dismissal claims after just six months of service, down from two years currently.

HR consultant Tina Rahman argued that employers lack transparency about why they want AI integrated into roles and what the ultimate purpose is—cost savings, time efficiency, and reducing outsourcing. "Because they misunderstand it, this is not being reflected to employees," said Rahman, who runs London-based consultancy HR Habitat.

Why it matters

The shift toward AI-dependent career advancement creates immediate pressure on workers in a weak job market—UK vacancies have hit a five-year low—while raising unresolved questions about compensation equity and job security. Companies risk creating perverse incentives where employees game metrics rather than improve decision-making, and the lack of transparent policies may expose firms to legal challenges as employment protections expand. How organizations balance productivity gains with fair treatment of workers will shape both AI adoption rates and workforce stability.

Performance theater concerns

Kamila Miller, an applied AI researcher at Henley Business School, warned that mandating AI use can become "purely performative." She argued that making AI usage a key performance indicator leads employees to "log their interactions to hit the metric, route work through a chatbot that did not need it, and generate AI-flavoured outputs that look productive on a dashboard."

"You will measure adoption. You will not measure judgement, learning, or better decisions," Miller said. "You have not made people more skilled—you have made them more obedient."

Some companies have reconsidered their approach. Duolingo CEO Luis von Ahn told a podcast in April that his language learning company stopped using AI in performance reviews after employees asked whether they should "use AI for AI's sake." In May, the Financial Times reported that Amazon shut down an internal AI leaderboard after employees gamed the system by assigning AI needless tasks.

Despite these high-profile reversals, many workers feel compelled to demonstrate AI proficiency. A July survey by recruiter Gi Group found that 75% of 1,881 UK jobseekers would not be deterred from applying to organizations that factor AI proficiency into performance reviews, though 22% found the practice off-putting.

These details were first reported by the BBC.