My employees were wary of AI. Then I incentivized them with profit sharing.

• A payments company created a profit-sharing program to encourage employees to adopt AI tools.
• Staff became more efficient, and the company reduced hiring, said its cofounder and CEO, Ran Grushkowsky.
• Eligible employees earned up to 18% of their salary last year, with higher payouts expected this year.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ran Grushkowsky, who co-founded the Las Vegas-based payments company MassPay in 2000, then served on its board, and was named CEO in December. This story has been edited for length and clarity.

Until mid-2025, it was a challenge to get employees at MassPay to use AI. They were maybe afraid that it would replace their jobs. There was a misalignment around how AI could produce cost savings.

To solve this problem, we created a profit-sharing program, and it's working well for us. We announced it a year ago and told employees we have two goals. One is to make more money, which is obvious. The more important one is to cut costs.

The idea was that the more efficiently they work, the bigger the pool of money they'd get to share. It was a little bit of a shock at first. People are used to getting bonuses or stock options, so profit-sharing took a little bit of explaining. But once it clicked, we started to see results.

The way it works is that the company first sets aside the money it needs to maintain operations and grow. Any profit beyond that threshold goes into the profit-sharing pool.

Each eligible employee's share is calculated by dividing their salary by the total number of eligible salaries, then multiplying by the amount in the profit-sharing pool.

Say an employee makes $100,000 a year, and the eligible employees' salaries total $2 million, and the profit-sharing pool is $300,000. The employee would receive 15% of their salary, or $15,000.

Last year, participants received 18% of their annual salary from the program. This year, we expect they'll receive close to 50%.

Before we started doing this, we planned to hire about five people in 2025, but that need has been eliminated thanks to AI. We were able to help our employees find their own superpowers so they could do more than they did before.

For example, when a business is submitting an application to become a client, it used to take a week to process all the information — documents such as letters of incorporation, compliance manuals, and user agreements. Now we can do it within 24 hours.

AI isn't replacing existing employees, and because of our incentive program, I think morale has increased. Initially, it was a concern, but everybody wants to be part of a winning team. AI tools can help you improve everything you do as a team.