Workplace surveillance gets an emotional upgrade

TL;DR: Emotion AI—a category of tools that claim to read people’s feelings by measuring their tone and expressions—is slowly creeping into workplaces, according to a new report from the Atlantic. Your boss might not have to inform you they're using it, which means you could be secretly judged by an AI for your concentrating-too-hard face.

What happened: The list of emotion AI tools on the market is rapidly growing: There’s an app called MorphCast that analyzes meeting participants’ emotions in real time—Zoom extension included. Slack now has an integration called Aware that monitors employee chats for “sentiment and toxicity.” One AI startup says its tools can analyze the emotional states of job interview candidates. The global market for emotion AI could triple to $9 billion by 2030, according to the Atlantic.

How we got here: Emotion monitoring on the clock isn’t new (see: the entire service industry). For years, MetLife has been using an AI that listens to call center agents’ voices for energy, pace, and tone. (If the worker sounds tired, a coffee cup pops up on screen reminding them to perk up.) Earlier this year, Burger King started testing an OpenAI-powered headset called “Patty” that similarly rates drive-thru workers’ friendliness. The difference now is that more white-collar jobs are facing down such emotional surveillance.

A flawed tool: Given how famously complex human emotions are, it’s unclear how reliable AI is at reading feelings. As one expert told the Atlantic, research shows that Americans scowl when they’re angry only about one-third of the time. And even if someone scowls, it might be because they’re concentrating. Last year, the EU banned workplace emotion AI except for medical or safety reasons; the US has no federal equivalent, and only a handful of states require employers to disclose electronic monitoring of workers.

Bottom line: AI workplace surveillance is expanding before there’s strong evidence the tools actually improve work. There are few rules in place that even inform employees of how they’re being observed. And emotion AI in particular adds a whole new line item to your job description: convincing a bot you’re always cheerful.

What this means for your job: Unless you work for Meta, which is nice enough to announce it’s tracking employees, you probably won’t know exactly how you’re being watched—but if you’re on an employer-issued device, you almost certainly are. Check your employee handbook, offer letter, and IT policies. —WK