Many Italian workers still have no idea how much their male and female coworkers earn for the same profession. This is the conclusion drawn from Ipsos Doxa's compensation research for Coverflex, which shows a stark contrast between the great demand for transparency and firms' limited data sharing. Silence surrounding the gender pay gap remains the norm: 55% of employees have never asked about wage disparities, despite having the right to do so, and only 13% claim their business publicly provides this information. There is also a lack of transparency on bonuses, career objectives, and wage levels. However, the demand for transparency is overwhelming: 83% of employees support transparency, while 69% accuse Italian companies of being opaque. Expected benefits include enhanced company trust (42%), reduced inequality (40%), and concerns about tensions between coworkers (37%), and privacy (28%). This is the context of the recent Legislative Decree of May 7, 2026 (number 96), which implements the European Directive on Pay Transparency, imposing stringent obligations on companies beginning with the recruitment phase. To aid compliance, the paper recommends the use of AI-based tools: by evaluating pay stubs and HR data, AI can immediately identify compensation disparities between similar groups. This significant technology assistance, however, cannot be provided without human examination of roles, responsibilities, and seniority.