The Cost of AI Misinformation: Why Wrong Salary Data Is Costing You £240K/Month
The Cost of AI Misinformation: Why Wrong Salary Data Is Costing You £240K/Month
Your CFO tracks cost per hire. They watch recruitment spend. They know that losing a candidate at the offer stage costs £8,000 in sunk recruiting time.
But they probably don't know this: AI is telling candidates you pay £20-30K less than you actually do.
And every month, dozens of qualified candidates see that wrong number and move on — before you ever know they were interested.
Here's the financial impact of AI misinformation, in numbers a CFO will care about.
The Problem, Quantified
We audited 200 UK tech companies and compared what AI models (ChatGPT, Google AI, Perplexity) say about their salaries vs. actual posted salary ranges.
The findings:
- 78% of salary estimates were inaccurate by more than £5,000
- 62% underestimated actual salaries — median gap: £23,400
- 16% overestimated — median gap: £12,100
- 22% were accurate within a ±£5K margin
Translation: For most employers, AI is systematically underestimating what you pay by £20,000+.
Why This Costs Real Money
Scenario: Series B Tech Company (250 Employees)
Hiring Plan:
- 40 engineering hires in 2026
- Target: Senior Engineers at £85K-£105K
- Average offer: £95,000
What AI Says:
- ChatGPT estimate: £65K-£75K
- Google AI estimate: £60K-£72K
- Perplexity estimate: £68K-£78K
Gap: AI is underestimating by £20-30K per role.
The Candidate Funnel Leak
Traditional funnel (pre-AI):
- 1,000 potential candidates see your job posting
- 200 visit careers page (20% CTR)
- 80 apply (40% application rate)
- 40 screen calls (50% response rate)
- 20 interviews (50% progress rate)
- 10 offers (50% advance rate)
- 6 hires (60% acceptance rate)
Cost per hire: £15,000 (agency/internal recruiting costs)
Total recruiting cost for 6 hires: £90,000
AI-mediated funnel (2026):
- 1,000 potential candidates research the company
- 800 ask AI "What does [Company] pay for senior engineers?" (80% use AI)
- AI answers: £65-75K (£20K below reality)
- 560 candidates move on (70% deterred by "low" salary)
- 240 candidates remain in the funnel
- 48 visit careers page (20% CTR, same as before)
- 19 apply (40% application rate)
- 9 screen calls (50% response rate)
- 4 interviews (50% progress rate)
- 2 offers (50% advance rate)
- 1 hire (60% acceptance rate)
New cost per hire: £15,000 (same recruiting cost, fewer hires)
To achieve 6 hires: You now need 6,000 potential candidates at top of funnel
New total recruiting cost: £90,000 × 6 = £540,000
Added cost from AI misinformation: £450,000/year
Break Down the Impact
| Metric | Pre-AI (2023) | AI-Era (2026) | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top-of-funnel candidates | 1,000 | 6,000 (needed) | +500% |
| Candidates deterred by AI | 0 | 560 (per 1K) | +56% |
| Application rate | 8% | 3.2% | -60% |
| Cost per hire | £15K | £15K | 0% |
| Total recruiting cost (6 hires) | £90K | £540K | +500% |
Annual Impact (40 hires):
- Pre-AI cost: £600,000
- AI-era cost: £3,600,000
- Difference: £3,000,000/year
Even if our funnel assumptions are aggressive, cut that in half and you're still looking at £1.5M/year in lost recruiting efficiency.
But That's Just One Company
Let's model this across company sizes:
Startup (50 Employees, 10 Hires/Year)
Assumptions:
- Avg. salary: £75K
- AI underestimates by: £18K
- 70% of candidates deterred
Added recruiting cost: £112,500/year
Scale-Up (250 Employees, 40 Hires/Year)
Assumptions:
- Avg. salary: £85K
- AI underestimates by: £22K
- 70% of candidates deterred
Added recruiting cost: £450,000/year
Enterprise (1,000+ Employees, 150 Hires/Year)
Assumptions:
- Avg. salary: £90K
- AI underestimates by: £25K
- 65% of candidates deterred (less sensitive due to brand strength)
Added recruiting cost: £1,265,625/year
The Second-Order Costs
Beyond direct recruiting spend, AI misinformation creates cascading costs:
1. Slower Time-to-Hire
Problem: Fewer qualified applicants means more time finding the right hire.
Impact:
- Pre-AI: 45 days avg. time-to-hire
- AI-era: 68 days avg. (+51%)
Cost: Each additional week a role is unfilled costs £2,400 in lost productivity (for a £95K role).
For a 250-person company hiring 40/year, that's £220,800/year in productivity loss.
2. Lower Candidate Quality
Problem: When volume drops, you hire from a smaller pool.
Impact:
- Pre-AI: Top 10% of applicants advance
- AI-era: Top 20% advance (looser bar due to fewer applicants)
Cost: A mis-hire at £95K salary costs £140,000 (6 months salary + severance + re-recruiting).
Even one additional mis-hire per year = £140K.
3. Salary Inflation (The Negotiation Problem)
Problem: When AI overestimates salaries, candidates come in with inflated expectations.
Example:
- Your budget: £75K-£90K
- AI says: £85K-£105K
- Candidate expects: £105K minimum
Outcome:
- You lose the candidate (they think you're lowballing)
- Or you pay £105K (£15K over budget)
Cost: For 5 hires where AI overestimated, paying £15K extra = £75K/year in wage inflation.
4. Employer Brand Damage
Problem: When AI consistently lowballs your salaries, candidates conclude "they're cheap."
Impact:
- Glassdoor rating: No change (AI doesn't read it)
- LinkedIn reputation: No change (AI cites old info)
- AI-mediated reputation: Severe damage
Cost: Difficult to quantify, but brand perception drives 30%+ of application volume (LinkedIn research).
If AI misinformation erodes your brand by 10 points, that's a 3%+ drop in application volume across all roles.
For a 250-person company, that's £45,000/year in lost recruiting efficiency.
Total Annual Impact: Mid-Size Tech Company
| Cost Category | Annual Impact |
|---|---|
| Increased recruiting spend (fewer applicants) | £450,000 |
| Lost productivity (longer time-to-hire) | £220,800 |
| Mis-hires (lower candidate quality) | £140,000 |
| Wage inflation (overestimated salaries) | £75,000 |
| Brand erosion (AI reputation damage) | £45,000 |
| Total | £930,800/year |
Per role: £930,800 ÷ 40 hires = £23,270 per hire in AI-driven inefficiency.
Why CFOs Should Care
Most CFOs don't think about "AI visibility" as a line item. But they do think about:
1. Recruiting as % of Revenue
Industry benchmark: 15-20% of operating expenses.
Problem: AI misinformation is pushing that number higher without increasing headcount.
Question for your CFO: "Are we getting more hires per £100K spent than last year?"
If the answer is no, AI misinformation is likely a contributor.
2. Cost per Hire Trends
Pre-AI trend: Cost per hire declining (better ATS, more efficient pipelines).
AI-era trend: Cost per hire increasing (fewer applicants, more sourcing required).
Question: "Why is cost per hire up 40% when our recruiting team size hasn't changed?"
AI misinformation is a major factor.
3. Recruiting ROI
Metric: (Value of hires) ÷ (Total recruiting spend)
Problem: If you're spending £540K to get 6 hires that you used to get for £90K, your ROI just dropped 6x.
Question: "Is our recruiting spend delivering the same quality hires as before?"
If no → investigate AI visibility.
The Fix (And Its ROI)
The solution to AI misinformation is structured data + transparency.
What to Implement
1. Salary Transparency (£0 Cost)
- Publish salary ranges on job listings
- Add salary data to schema.org JobPosting markup
- Update careers page FAQ with ranges
Time: 2-4 hours
Impact: AI cites your official data instead of guessing
2. JSON-LD Structured Data (£500-£2,000 One-Time)
- Organization schema (homepage)
- JobPosting schema (job listings)
- FAQPage schema (careers page)
Time: 4-8 hours for a developer
Impact: 30-40% improvement in factual accuracy
3. Content Reformatting (£1,000-£3,000 One-Time)
- Rewrite careers page in FAQ format
- Add salary tables
- Make facts extractable
Time: 2-4 days for a content writer
Impact: 20-25% increase in AI citation rate
4. AI Visibility Monitoring (£149-£399/Month)
- Weekly checks on what AI says about you
- Alerts when key facts are wrong
- Competitive benchmarking
Time: Automated
Impact: Catch hallucinations before candidates do
ROI Calculation
Total Implementation Cost:
- Structured data: £1,500
- Content reformat: £2,000
- Monitoring (annual): £3,588
- Year 1 Total: £7,088
Conservative Impact:
- Reduce AI-driven candidate drop-off by 40%
- Recover 16 additional applicants per 40 hires (from the 560 we were losing)
- Reduce recruiting spend by £180,000/year
ROI: (£180,000 - £7,088) ÷ £7,088 = 2,439% first-year ROI
Even if you only recover 10% of the lost candidates, the ROI is >200%.
CFO Talking Points: The Business Case
If you're presenting this to finance, here's the pitch:
The Problem
"AI models are underestimating our salaries by £20-30K, deterring 560+ qualified candidates per 1,000 that research us. This is increasing cost per hire by 40%+."
The Cost
"For our 40-hire plan, AI misinformation is costing us £450K-£930K/year in recruiting inefficiency, lost productivity, and wage inflation."
The Fix
"We can implement salary transparency, structured data, and AI monitoring for £7K upfront + £3.5K/year ongoing."
The ROI
"Conservative estimate: recover 40% of lost candidates, reduce recruiting spend by £180K/year. First-year ROI: >2,000%."
The Timeline
"Full implementation in 30 days. Measurable impact within 90 days."
FAQ: CFO Edition
Q: Can we just ignore AI and rely on traditional recruiting?
A: 80% of candidates now use AI to research employers. Ignoring AI means accepting 40-60% higher cost per hire.
Q: What's the confidence level on these numbers?
A: We modeled from 200 real audits + public recruiting benchmarks. Conservative assumptions (70% deterrence rate is likely high). Even at 50% impact, ROI is >500%.
Q: How long does the fix take?
A: Core implementation: 30 days. Ongoing monitoring: automated.
Q: What's the alternative?
A: Increase top-of-funnel marketing spend by 5-6x to compensate for AI-driven drop-off. That's £500K+/year in additional job board spend.
Q: Can we measure this?
A: Yes. Track: (1) Application rate pre/post fix, (2) AI accuracy score, (3) Cost per hire. All measurable within 90 days.
Conclusion: £240K/Month is Conservative
The title of this post says £240K/month. That's for a mid-size tech company hiring 40 people/year.
If you're hiring 150+/year, the number is closer to £1M/month.
And we haven't even counted:
- Lost revenue from understaffed teams
- Delayed product launches from unfilled engineering roles
- Customer churn from understaffed support
When your CFO asks "Why did recruiting costs go up 40% this year?", the answer might not be your recruiting team's performance. It might be that AI is telling candidates you pay £30K less than you actually do.
And unlike most recruiting problems, this one is fixable in 30 days for under £10K.
Want to see what AI says about your salaries right now?
Run a free OpenRole audit — it checks ChatGPT, Google AI, and Perplexity in 30 seconds.
If AI is underestimating by £20K+, your CFO will want to see the report.
Sources:
- OpenRole audit data: 200 UK tech companies (Feb 2026)
- LinkedIn Talent Solutions: Cost per hire benchmarks (2025)
- Indeed: Time-to-hire industry averages (2025)
- Greenhouse: Recruiting funnel conversion rates (2024)
- SHRM: Cost of mis-hire research (2024)
- Profound: AI citation behavior study (2024-2025)