What does it really mean to future-proof Sales Compensation?
That question ran throughout Sales Compensation Summit 2026, as leaders from Sales, Finance, Compensation, Reward, RevOps, Technology and academia came together to explore the future of variable pay.
AI was inevitably a major part of the conversation, but the discussions went much further. From data and technology to Territory & Quota Planning, adoption and human judgement, five themes continued to surface throughout the day.
1. AI should expand what we're capable of, not just make us faster
AI can already research, analyse, model and generate at a speed that would have been difficult to imagine only a few years ago. But simply doing the same work faster isn’t necessarily where the greatest opportunity lies.
Julie Holmes challenged the room to consider this through her 20 | 60 | 20 approach: human preparation, AI-enabled execution and human judgement.
As AI raises the baseline of what people can achieve, the differentiator becomes what we do with that capability. Can we explore more possibilities? Ask better questions? Make better-informed decisions?
AI may be able to do more of the work, but human context, experience and judgement remain critical.
The opportunity isn’t simply to become faster. It’s to become better.
2. AI is only as powerful as the data behind it
For all the discussion about increasingly intelligent technology, one message surfaced repeatedly throughout the day: good AI requires good data.
Within Sales Compensation, the potential is significant. AI can help organisations analyse performance, identify patterns, model scenarios and uncover insights at a scale that traditional approaches struggle to match.
But sophisticated technology cannot compensate for fragmented, inaccessible or unreliable data.
This was also central to the conversation from Akeron, Technology Sponsor of SCS 2026, on the future of variable pay. As organisations look to introduce more intelligence and automation into Sales Performance Management, the foundations matter. Bringing planning, performance and compensation data together creates the context needed for technology and increasingly AI to deliver meaningful insight.
The future isn’t simply about adding AI on top of existing processes. It’s about creating the connected data and technology environment that allows it to add real value.
3. Territory & Quota Planning needs to become more forward-looking
One question from the day was particularly difficult to shake:
Why do we still call it “Territory Management” when modern business doesn’t always fall neatly into territories?
Customers operate internationally. Accounts overlap. Digital channels remove geographic boundaries. Buying groups span functions and locations, while organisations increasingly sell through multiple direct and indirect routes to market.
Territory & Quota Planning therefore needs to become more than an annual exercise in dividing accounts and assigning targets.
The bigger question is: where will the opportunity be, and how should we organise around it?
The Territory & Quota Planning Lab, bringing together Warwick Business School and Akeron, explored what happens when academic thinking, technology and real-world experience are applied to that challenge.
With better data and the right planning technology, organisations can move beyond simply looking backwards at historical performance and start modelling potential, testing different scenarios and making more informed decisions about where resources and targets should sit.
It’s a shift from administering territories to planning for opportunity.
4. Successful transformation needs People, Process and Technology
Technology was a major part of the SCS conversation, but so was the reminder that technology alone doesn’t create transformation.
The best platform in the world won’t fix an unnecessarily complex compensation plan, unclear ownership or poor adoption.
Successful transformation requires organisations to think about People, Process and Technology together. That means getting the design right, creating clear processes and governance, investing in training and adoption, and ensuring the technology supports what the business is actually trying to achieve.
It also means moving away from disconnected processes and systems. When Territory & Quota Planning, performance management and incentive compensation operate as separate exercises, it becomes much harder to understand how one decision affects another.
This is where platforms such as Vulki by Akeron can play a much broader role than simply calculating commission. Connecting planning, performance and compensation gives organisations greater visibility across the full performance cycle and a stronger foundation from which to introduce automation and AI.
Sales Compensation doesn’t belong neatly to one function either. Sales, Finance, Reward, RevOps and Technology may approach it from different perspectives, but those perspectives, and the systems supporting them, increasingly need to come together.
5. Future-proofing isn't about predicting the future
One of the final questions of the day asked the panel to consider how we might actually be using AI in 2030.
Nobody can know with certainty.
And perhaps that’s the most important lesson.
The pace of technological change makes it tempting to try to predict exactly what comes next. But future-proofing isn’t about having the perfect prediction.
It’s about being ready and capable of adapting to what comes next.
Technology will evolve. AI capabilities will change. Routes to market will shift. The way organisations structure teams, territories, quotas and incentives will continue to develop.
The organisations best prepared for that future will be those with strong foundations: trusted data, adaptable technology, effective processes and people equipped to apply judgement when the answers aren’t obvious.
What does this look like in practice?
Learn more about how Akeron is approaching the future of Sales Performance Management.
