Promise vs. Practice: AI in Stock-Based Compensation

Every function in almost every organization is tackling some version of the same question: Where does AI fit, and how much enthusiasm versus professional skepticism is warranted? More importantly, how much of that enthusiasm survives contact with real-world processes?  

Stock-based compensation (SBC) offers a revealing test case.  

SBC spans HR, accounting, tax, and legal. It’s technically complex, governed by an unforgiving calendar, and core to talent strategy. Few business processes combine this degree of cross-functional dependency with so much strategic impact. 

Instead of relying on anecdotes, we went looking for data. We surveyed 145 practitioners across incentive design and proxy, stock plan administration, and financial and tax reporting to see how organizations are approaching AI in stock-based compensation. 

The headline is that execution lags intent, but momentum is real. About a quarter of organizations report an active AI mandate, and half are still exploring AI. Only 5% say AI is already part of their standard workflows. Even so, 78% expect meaningful integration within the next three years.  

In this webcast, we share the full results before discussing our predictions about where AI is headed and where it can deliver the biggest practical impact. 

Highlights include: 

• How organizational posture and adoption timelines vary by industry, team size, and respondent seniority
• Where practitioners see the greatest opportunities, with stock plan administration emerging ahead of design, proxy, and reporting
• Function-specific priorities, including reconciliation in stock administration, peer benchmarking in design, and variance analysis in reporting
• The operational risks respondents hope AI will address, with reducing key-person dependence being the number one objective
• Our own views on the top use cases in each phase of the SBC lifecycle

Join Takis Makridis and Siddharth Thaker for a data-driven discussion of where AI in SBC is most likely to earn its keep. 

CPE Credits: 1.0 (available to live webcast attendees)
Field of Study: Specialized Knowledge
Program Level: Overview
Advance Preparation: none required
Prerequisites: none required
Additional CPE details