Big Tech exploring emotion-detecting technologies to monitor employees

Although productivity tracking based on facial expressions failed to take off when first proposed by WeWork, technology companies continue to pursue emotion-monitoring innovations. An article in the Financial Times reports on recent patent filings in the US that reveal Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, and Meta have all explored technologies designed to infer human emotions by analysing body language, voice recordings, surrounding audio, and facial expressions.

Despite pushback against employee monitoring software, workplace surveillance remains widespread. Consulting firm Gartner estimates that nearly two-thirds of large companies in the US monitor staff through location tracking, keystroke logging, message analysis, or automated screenshots. While the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) prohibit using artificial intelligence (AI) to infer workplace emotions, except for medical or safety reasons, no equivalent ban exists in the US, where regulators focus primarily on transparency and testing, or in the UK, which is currently consulting on the adoption of such technologies.

Industry experts suggest that remote working during the pandemic acclimatised individuals to workplace monitoring, increasing consumer tolerance towards biometric data collection. Biometric tools are already expanding beyond corporate settings into retail, age verification platforms, and recruitment. For example, US-based startup Imentiv AI offers technology that evaluates job candidates by analysing vocal tone and facial expressions.

While proponents argue detailed monitoring could enhance safety or reward high performance, critics warn that surveilling expressions harms morale. Rather than improving productivity, tracking facial expressions is likely to breed paranoia, distrust, dissatisfaction, and burnout among employees.

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