The Intelligence Gap: How Perplexity Navigated Build vs. Buy to Turn Comp Data Into a Decision Engine
Wednesday, August 5, 3:30 PM - 4:00 PM
Showcase
Infrastructure & Design
Infrastructure & Design

Every vendor at this conference will tell you AI can automate your comp workflows. This session argues that's the wrong conversation entirely.

The real question isn't whether AI can make comp operations faster. It's whether your comp function is producing the strategic intelligence your business needs to make better decisions about your largest variable investment. Most enterprise comp teams are sitting on one of the richest behavioral datasets in the organization — what's actually driving rep behavior, which plan components move the needle, where spend is efficient and where it's bleeding margin — and almost none of them can access that intelligence in real time. The data exists. The ability to ask questions of it does not.

This session, led by Nate Follen, Director of Business Systems at Perplexity, examines what changes when AI is treated as a strategic layer on top of comp infrastructure rather than an operational shortcut — and what happens when an AI-native company confronts the build vs. buy decision head-on. Grounded in how AI-native companies actually run their comp functions, this is not a product pitch or a futurist talk. It's a practical look at how the comp leader's role shifts from scorekeeper to strategic advisor when the intelligence gap closes — and why that shift only works when the infrastructure underneath is built for it.

Key Takeaways

  • A Comp Intelligence Maturity Model for assessing where your comp function sits today: from static reporting to real-time strategic intelligence
  • The three categories of comp insight most enterprise teams have the data for but cannot access: plan effectiveness, spend efficiency, and behavioral attribution
  • Why AI on top of fragile infrastructure produces confident wrong answers — and what "AI-ready" comp infrastructure actually requires
  • How AI-native companies use comp data as a decision engine for H2 planning, not just a payout reconciliation tool
  • A practical breakdown of what changes in the comp leader's day-to-day when the intelligence gap closes — and what doesn't
Jose Aleman
Jose Aleman
Vice President, GTM Excellence
Everstage