Gusto is trying to be apart of the AI cult but won’t even spend money on the AI tools that actually work. - Onboarding Advocate Gusto Employee Review

1.0
Jul 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

They pay 90% of your monthly medical premium.

Cons

Gusto has a revolving door of upper management who try to reinvent the wheel then leverage their position to go get a job somewhere else within a year. Someone pretty high up convinced the owner to spend way too much money on AI then left. And not even the useful kind, just the cheapest AI slop. They are trying to recoup their financial losses by taking away employees BENEFITS and ability to get a raise. Gusto is already notoriously the lowest paying company and they justified it by saying “we give you so many perks” but they took every perk away and now we have to pay for our own health insurance. Instead of raises last year we got extra shares. 4 months later every single employee was forced to sell a portion of our shares. KEEPING THE SHARES YOU “EARNED AS A RAISE” WAS NOT AN OPTION. Performance reviews are based on your use of AI. Employees will not receive a raise unless they use AI to create automation to do your daily job responsibilities so they can add more to your workload. Gusto is constantly switching AI tools so nothing is around long enough to develop an automation code and actually get to use it by your next performance review. For the last 4 years Gusto has switched the metrics it uses to evaluate employees every 6 months. The 6 months always lands about 2 months before your performance review so you’ve spent 2/3 of the review period trying to meet completely different metrics. When this is brought to hire ups attention, we are told they will look into it. Then a month later that hire up LEAVES GUSTO. I promise every positive review is by a bot. Gusto is also notorious for spending more money on marketing than fixing their broken product. The employees that work in the call center don't have caller ID. Even in and out burger had caller ID 15 years ago.

Explore other reviews about Gusto

5.0
Jun 10, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Smart and friendly coworkers. Excellent team culture

Cons

Tunnel visions on AI a bit too much

1
2.0
May 20, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The product is genuinely good, too bad the same can’t be said for how they treat the people who sell it.

Cons

Leadership talks a big game about people-first culture but the reality doesn’t match. The Chicago office expansion felt like a poorly thought-out experiment, new hires were brought on without a clear long-term commitment, and layoffs came without warning, leaving people blindsided. Crossing a billion dollars in revenue and still cutting employees sends a clear message about where workers rank on the priority list. Remote work flexibility is also a glaring weakness. For a company selling HR software to modern businesses, their internal stance on where employees can work is surprisingly rigid and hypocritical. The “flexibility” messaging is mostly optics. The broader concern is the AI roadmap. The automation push feels less like an innovation strategy and more like a slow wind-down of the workforce. Employees aren’t blind to it, it creates anxiety and erodes trust. The culture of transparency they promote externally is largely a facade internally.

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