In a modern-day adaptation of George Orwell’s surveillance depiction, corporations are now deploying artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor communications on popular platforms such as Slack and Microsoft Teams.
This initiative, energized by the startup Aware, has been embraced by industry behemoths such as Walmart, Delta Air Lines, and T-Mobile, aiming to maintain a digital surveillance of employee interactions, as reported by CNBC.
Jeff Schumann, co-founder and CEO of Columbus, Ohio-based Aware, articulated, “The AI assists companies in comprehending the risk within their communications,” providing a real-time gauge of employee sentiment.
This approach offers a dynamic alternative to the traditional, more static methods such as annual surveys. According to CNBC, this marks a significant shift in how companies engage with internal communications data.
While anonymizing data in its analytics product, Aware’s suite of tools can detect a range of inappropriate behaviors, including bullying, harassment, and discrimination.
“Aware’s analytics tool — the one that monitors employee sentiment and toxicity — doesn’t possess the capability to flag individual employee names,” Schumann clarified.
However, the company’s eDiscovery tool can identify individuals in instances involving severe threats or risk behaviors, as predefined by the client.
While the application of this technology by companies like AstraZeneca concentrates on scanning legal records without delving into sentiment analysis, Delta Air Lines has adopted both Aware’s analytics and eDiscovery tools.
Delta informed CNBC that it utilizes these tools to track trends and sentiment, serving as a means to gather feedback from both employees and other stakeholders.
According to Schumann, Aware has witnessed an average annual revenue growth of 150% over the last five years. The company’s typical clientele comprises organizations with approximately 30,000 employees. Notable competitors in this sector include Qualtrics, Relativity, Proofpoint, Smarsh, and Netskope.
Integrating AI into workplace monitoring has sparked a debate on privacy and ethics, with AI accountability experts raising concerns over potential overreach and the implications for employee freedom.
This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
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