Tiny team, large salaries – the future of AI departments?

Is this the future?

Just imagine: a handful of elite AI experts commanding compensation packages worth tens or even hundreds of millions, while the rest of the workforce wonders if their role is next. Welcome to the dawning era of AI elite teams: small in numbers, monumental in investment.

Why It Matters

Meta’s launch of Meta Superintelligence Labs has signaled a seismic shift. In mid‑2025, they offered packages estimated at up to $300 million over four years to a few senior hires, including Ruoming Pang, recruited from Apple, for a reported $200+ million deal.

If that wasn't enough, AI wunderkind Matt Deitke initially turned down a $125 million offer, only to accept a doubled $250 million total compensation package after Mark Zuckerberg personally intervened. These serious numbers would make a premier league footballer blush.

Compensation Benchmarking

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: talent markets are changing. The Lightcast report “Beyond the Buzz” reported that job posts requesting AI skills now offer nearly 28% more salary, roughly £14–18 k annually above non‑AI roles. 

But those eye‑watering packages live at the extreme top for a tiny number of PhDs and startup founders, armed with equity, performance bonuses, and front‑loaded vesting schedules, creating an issue of sustainability, this has to stop somewhere.

Where does it leave the rest of us?

What if you’re not hiring the next Matt Deitke? What if your organisation is small and operating in HR, TA, or internal services and not building AGI? This begs the question: Is pouring millions into a tiny band of AI leads truly strategic or just performative?

For most companies, funding domain centric AI fluency or up-skilling talent acquisition specialists makes far more sense than anchoring your approach on “superstars” whose ROI is opaque. – Lightcast highlights that HR talent acquisition roles and other non-technical roles have seen a 66% increase in AI‑skills demand, the highest among non‑tech sectors, so the money might be better spent training dozens than buying a “one‑of‑a‑kind” researcher.

So to the future and beyond

Fast forward to 2030: we may see smaller organisations adopting models where AI proficiency is embedded across broad teams—where roles like AI‑aware recruiter, AI‑enhanced workforce planner, and prompt‑engineering learning designer are standard. Compensation models will mimic that shift: and hence modest premiums across many roles, not mega‑bucks for a few.

What do you think? Do you see AI hiring heading toward exclusivity or diffusion? Stick a comment below with your take, and if you’d like to discuss how to integrate AI skills into your team or organisation or just up-skill yourself drop me a line and let’s connect.