![\"Meta](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776930508_147_ImageResizer.ashx.jpeg\")
<\/p>\nMeta is installing new tracking software on US-based employees\u2019 computers to capture mouse movements, clicks and \u2060keystrokes for use \u2060in training its artificial intelligence models, part of a broad initiative to build AI agents that can perform work tasks autonomously, the company told staffers in internal memos seen by Reuters.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The tool, called Model Capability Initiative (MCI), will run on work-related apps and websites and will also take occasional snapshots of the content on employees\u2019 screens, according to one of the memos, posted by a staff AI research scientist in a channel for the \u200ccompany’s model-building Meta SuperIntelligence Labs team.<\/p>\n
The purpose, according to the memo, was to improve the company’s AI models in \u200careas \u200cwhere they struggle to replicate how humans interact with computers, like choosing from dropdown menus and using keyboard \u200cshortcuts.<\/p>\n
“This is where all Meta employees can help our models get better simply by doing their daily work,” \u2060it said.<\/p>\n
The Facebook and Instagram owner has been moving aggressively to integrate AI into its\u00a0workflows and reshape its workforce around the technology, arguing it will make the company operate more efficiently.<\/p>\n
Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth told employees in a separate memo that the company would step up internal data collection as part of those “AI for Work” efforts, now re-branded as Agent Transformation Accelerator (ATA).<\/p>\n
\u201cThe vision we are building towards is one where our agents \u200bprimarily do the work and our role is to direct, review and help them improve,” Bosworth said.<\/p>\n
The aim, he added, was for agents to “automatically see where we felt the need to intervene so they can be better next time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bosworth did not explicitly spell out \u2060how those agents would be trained, but said Meta would be \u201crigorous\u201d about \u201cbuilding up data and evals for all the types of interactions we have as we go about our work.\u201d<\/p>\n
Meta spokesperson Andy Stone acknowledged that the MCI data would be among the inputs.<\/p>\n
AI workforce overhaul<\/p>\n
Stone said the data gathered via MCI would not be used for performance assessments or any other purpose besides model training and that safeguards were in place to protect “sensitive content,” without elaborating on which types of data would be excluded from collection.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“If we’re building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them \u2014 things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus,” said Stone.<\/p>\n
The push to automate functions previously performed by human staffers reflects a broad pattern among major US companies this year, especially in the tech sector.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
AI tools have captivated Silicon Valley with their ability to handle complex tasks like \u200bcreating apps and organizing large volumes of data with limited human oversight, sparking a selloff \u2060in stocks of traditional software companies and inspiring\u00a0some executives to plan extensive job cuts.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Meta is planning to lay off \u206010 percent of its workforce globally starting on May 20 and is eyeing additional large cuts later this year.<\/p>\n
Amazon.com similarly has trimmed 30,000 corporate employees in recent months, representing nearly 10 percent of its white-collar workers, \u200bwhile in February the fintech company Block chopped nearly half of its staff.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Internally, Meta has been exhorting staffers to use AI agents for coding and other tasks, even \u200cif it slows them down in \u2060the short term. It has also been wiping out distinctions between certain job functions in favor of a new general-purpose job title called \u201cAI builder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last month, it created a new Applied AI (AAI) engineering team\u00a0aimed at improving the coding capabilities of Meta\u2019s AI models and using them to craft AI agents that can perform the bulk of the work to build, test and ship future products and \u200cinfrastructure at Meta.<\/p>\n
Meta started transferring \u201cstrong\u201d software engineers into AAI earlier this month.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Surveillance concerns\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Computer logging and screenshotting technology have historically been used by companies to hunt for employee misconduct or non-work-related activities, said Ifeoma Ajunwa, a law professor at Yale University.<\/p>\n
The move to log employees\u2019 keystrokes takes the data-gathering goals a step further, she said, subjecting white-collar employees to a degree of real-time surveillance previously experienced only by delivery drivers and gig workers.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cOn the US side, federally, there \u200bis no limit on worker surveillance,\u201d Ajunwa said, adding that state-level laws require at most that workers be broadly informed when employers are monitoring them.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
European law would likely prohibit such monitoring, said Valerio De Stefano, a law professor at York University in Toronto who studies technology and comparative labor law.<\/p>\n
In some countries, such as Italy, using electronic monitoring to track employee productivity is explicitly illegal, while \u200cin Germany, courts have held \u2060that employers can deploy keystroke logging only in exceptional circumstances, such \u200bas suspicion of a serious criminal offense.<\/p>\n
Additionally, De Stefano said, the practice would likely be considered a violation of Europe\u2019s General Data Protection Regulation.<\/p>\n
More broadly, he said, awareness of employer surveillance shifts the balance of workplace power \u200bin the employer\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Meta is installing new tracking software on US-based employees\u2019 computers to capture mouse movements, clicks and \u2060keystrokes for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":625271,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-625270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=625270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/625270\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/625271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=625270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=625270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=625270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}