June 4, 2026
Raise.exe has stopped working
CEO to staff: You're not getting a raise. We're spending on AI instead
Workers told to skip raises while the boss bets big on AI and commenters smell panic
TLDR: Teradata told employees not to expect raises because it wants to redirect that money into artificial intelligence spending. Commenters blasted the move as desperate, unfair, and possibly just “AI washing,” while joking that workers are being asked to fund the future and work weekends too.
The real scandal here isn’t just that Teradata told roughly 5,100 employees to forget their usual annual raise so the company can pour more money into artificial intelligence. It’s that the internet took one look at the memo and basically yelled, “Oh, so workers are funding the robot future now?” The company says it wants to “win in the market with AI,” but commenters were not exactly standing up and applauding. The loudest reaction was pure dread: this didn’t read like bold innovation to many people — it read like a company with slowing sales making a desperate gamble and sending employees the bill.
That’s where the drama kicked in. One camp called it “AI washing,” arguing that if the business were healthy, it wouldn’t need to freeze raises to chase the latest shiny thing. Another group zoomed out and got even darker, saying workers may hate it but can’t easily walk away in a rough job market. Ouch. And then came the jokes: one commenter dropped a full-on Office Space style boss impression — basically, no raise, come in Saturday, maybe Sunday too — which says everything about the mood. The biggest hot take of all? People are increasingly suspicious of every executive promise to “go all in on AI,” with some asking the brutally simple question: what does “AI harder” even mean if nobody can clearly show the payoff yet?
Key Points
- •Teradata told its 5,100 employees not to expect 2026 annual salary raises because it is reallocating that budget to AI investment, according to an internal memo.
- •CEO Steve McMillan said Teradata’s 2026 focus is to 'win in the market with AI' and increase investment in AI talent and expertise.
- •The memo said employees may still receive performance-based bonuses and equity, and the decision applies where regulators do not require market-aligned salary adjustments.
- •The article identifies TTEC as another company that explicitly linked reduced employee benefits to funding AI tools, training, and capabilities.
- •An RBC Capital survey cited in the article found that 90% of 117 IT professionals surveyed planned to increase AI spending in 2026, while the article notes AI initiatives can cost from tens of thousands to millions of dollars.