Payroll is one of the few business processes where every mistake carries a name, an amount, and a date. That is why AI in payroll deserves a more careful conversation, as most of the discussion concentrates on what AI catches. The harder question is what AI changes while no one is watching. I have spent seventeen years in finance, first as a CFO and then building cross-border payroll infrastructure. Over that time, I have learned to treat automation as a trade: you give up visible manual work…