They ARE Watching You: Big Companies Using Artificial Intelligence to Monitor Employee Communications

Hey boss, if you’re reading this, I have been meaning to say what a truly wonderful company this is.

If you work for a company that uses Zoom, Slack, Microsoft Teams, or a similar app for employee communications, you might consider posting a similar message. Why? Because there’s a decent chance your employer is using artificial intelligence to monitor your messages, especially if you happen to work for big entities such as Walmart, Delta Air Lines, T-Mobile, Chevron, Starbucks, Nestle, AstraZeneca… the list goes on.

I’m assuming Amazon is in the game, considering they developed the Alexa technology that sits quietly in your home casually listening to everything you say.

If you don’t already believe that we live in the world of “Big Brother,” consider that a seven-year-old company called “Aware” has collected over 20 billion individual interactions by more than 3 million employees.

I wouldn’t post any risqué pics or funny jokes at work if I were you:

Using the anonymized data in Aware’s analytics product, clients can see how employees of a certain age group or in a particular geography are responding to a new corporate policy or marketing campaign, according to Schumann. Aware’s dozens of AI models, built to read text and process images, can also identify bullying, harassment, discrimination, noncompliance, pornography, nudity and other behaviors, he said.
Aware’s analytics tool — the one that monitors employee sentiment and toxicity — doesn’t have the ability to flag individual employee names, according to Schumann. But its separate eDiscovery tool can, in the event of extreme threats or other risk behaviors that are predetermined by the client, he added.

These major companies are using AI to snoop through employees’ messages, report revealshttps://t.co/EhLM41EOeV
— FOX Business (@FoxBusiness) February 25, 2024

Some American workers aren't thrilled with the idea of being snooped on, however:

"I would feel like, I don't know, like they're just trying to get something out of me and get me in trouble or something. I don't know, it would be very sneaky," one woman told [FOX Business' Lydia] Hu.
"I've seen A.I. being used firsthand, and it's so flawed and so messed up that I just think it wouldn't be a useful investment of anyone's time or money anyways. And that just doesn't really foster a trustworthy kind of business vibe," another woman argued.

Of course, there's always that one guy who stands idly by as the smoke gathers, unconcerned that a fire might be breaking out:

"I think I'm fine with it because I'm very watchful of what I do on company time, company property, anything like that," one man said.

We've all become accustomed to once inconceivable levels of surveillance, from our GPS units in our cars tracking everywhere we go to our every online click being monitored somewhere in cyberspace. Still, it's very creepy to imagine that all our office interactions might now be being monitored by some digital robot who's just waiting to tattle on us for our slightly off-color joke.

That being said, I should point out that virtually every person in management has terrific hair, and I'm going to be sure to post that on our office app soon.

I'd be remiss if I didn't end without a shoutout to Rockwell and his 1984 classic: