Just been made redundant? AI surveillance could be why as terrifying new trend exposedWith AI set to help axe some 8000 global employees of Meta next week, there are huge concerns about what the future will bring for all.Jamie Seidel@JamieSeidel4 min readMay 16, 2026 - 6:40PMANALYSISYou take your hand off the mouse and reach for the cold coffee. You lean back in your chair. You frown, in deep reflection. You give a little cough to clear your tired voice box – and head.And your conference call has just been assessed by the algorithms. For the second time in 5 minutes.Shiny corporate logo lapel pin: +5 points.Health warning: -5 pointsInactivity timer: -10 points.Others you may likenewsnewsInattention alert: -25 points.Aggression alarm (the frown): -100 points.An AI-generated evaluation flashes up on your supervisor’s terminal. It has red flags all over it.Your boss takes their hand off the mouse, reaches for a coffee … and leans back in their chair, frowning…Welcome to the office of 2026.It could be at home, in the CBD, at a warehouse – or in a car.But your every human action and reaction is being recorded, interpreted, and judged.By a machine.“This is fast becoming the new normal, where algorithmic eyes never blink,” says Institute for New Economic Thinking analyst Lynn Parramore. “Employers have always sought control; workers have always fought for autonomy and dignity. AI is the latest chapter, and perhaps the most intense yet — more intimate and pervasive than any monitoring that came before.”Office employees at coworking centre. Picture: iStockOn May 20, artificial intelligence will help axe some 8000 global employees of social media and advertising surveillance giant Meta.They won’t be told how.But they can guess.Meta (which runs Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Threads) suddenly installed a significant tracking software upgrade on employee devices a few weeks ago. It’s capturing mouse movements, where they click, their keystrokes, and what they write. Surreptitious screenshots are regularly being taken. And AI gets to assess what it all means.Meta management insists it’s all about improving AI “assistant” algorithms. But such intimate individual performance data can also be used for many other purposes. With questionable degrees of accuracy.Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta. Picture: Andrew Cabellero-Reynolds/AFPUnblinking algorithmic eyesIt takes a signal to make your chat window ping. Another for the new email chime. For your appointment notification pop-up to appear. And the GPS tracker on your workplace device needs to be updated.Every time these happen, a clock starts ticking. And a meter starts measuring.You punch out a quick quip on the group chat. Glance at the email header. And bury your head in your hands at the prospect of having to talk to a particularly obnoxious client.The tone of your chat reply has been assessed.The failure to scroll through the whole email was recorded.The negative posture reported.Every aspect of your work-related life (and often beyond) can be reduced to a personalised dataset.“Today’s AI monitoring systems come in two varieties: tools that track your behaviour and systems that make automated decisions about it,” Parramore explains.It’s been dubbed “bossware”.It’s supposed to be in your best interest.It enhances your productivity. Just don’t mention the stress.“Work can feel like you’re forced to play a game on a board you can’t see,” the communications strategist adds. “The more you type, the more the algorithm learns. It alone truly knows the score.”It alone knows how it reached that score, and why.And the AI assessor is immune from assessment.It could be “Aware”, “MorphCast”, “Kintsugi”, “Unmind” or “HireVue”- all AI systems that observe and deconstruct your digital performance. That means judging the words you use, the expressions on your face, your tone of voice … your reaction speed.“Workers see only the results, not the logic that produced them,” Parramore adds.Which raises questions.Does the AI understand your accent? Can it see through your moustache? Is your glossy lipstick distorting the digital interpretation of your expression?Does it actually do what it claims to do? Or just seem to?“AI programs purport to use data from wearables, text, and computer activity to detect how you feel, but in reality, it’s only inference: never what you actually experience,” she adds. “The science behind it is dubious, at best”.A worker uses an AI chatbot on mobile while working on the computer. Picture: iStockAI Utopia, or Apocalypse?Big business has a new boardroom Big Brother pitch: It’s all about your “wellbeing”.It wants, so the story goes, to alert you (and your employer) of signs of anxiety, depression – even suicide risk.For that, it needs to collect more personal data. Lots of it.And any sense of coerced performance enhancement is just an incidental side-effect.“With more sophisticated tools at their disposal, employers seek to capture not only what you do, but how you feel while doing it,” Parramore warns. “AI systems [turn] your mood into a metric. What was already creeping into the workplace as biosurveillance has morphed into Emotional Artificial Intelligence, showing up everywhere from call centres to finance offices.”Multinational investment bank JPMorgan Chase, for example, says it is closely monitoring its junior (but not senior) staff for signs of “overwork”. Not to assess performance.Even tired students trying to earn an extra buck at fast-food restaurants are being watched. Closely. AI surveillance systems now assess tone of voice and facial expressions, in addition to mapping how long it takes to shift that burger out of the dispenser and into customer hands.A worker moves a package with the logo of Amazon at a packing station of a redistribution centre. Picture: Ina Fassbender/AFPThe business of surveillance is booming. Picture: iStockAmazon’s warehouse workers already infamously have to contend with scanners monitoring bathroom breaks. Now, machine-learning algorithms are reportedly tracking where, when and how they move to squeeze out even greater productivity.You probably don’t know it. But it’s almost certainly in your workplace already.Analysts believe more than 30 per cent of all United Kingdom businesses have rolled out automated tools to assess employee performance. In Australia, that figure is well over 60 per cent. In the US, it’s estimated at 74 per cent.And the business of surveillance is booming. Companies can now hire specialist social media and “open source” data consultants to compile “risk assessments” of employees based on out-of-work electronic footprints.Such AI algorithms don’t just watch. They decide.More CoverageWorld rattled as ‘AI-powered cows’ emergeJai BednallAustralia braces for huge ‘200k’ job purgeDavid WuYou are being scored on systems you cannot see or appeal.And that bit about it being all about your wellbeing?“AI watching generates anticipatory stress: you worry about how every action might be interpreted in the future,” Parramore concludes. “This can lead to burnout, weakened imaginative capacity, and even physical symptoms.”Join the conversationAdd your comment to this storyTo join the conversation, please log in. Don't have an account? 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