{"id":908577,"date":"2026-09-28T13:02:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-28T13:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/908577\/"},"modified":"2026-09-28T13:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-28T13:02:13","slug":"teachers-at-euan-blair-firm-report-horrendous-stress-after-ai-used-to-rate-their-work-ai-artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/908577\/","title":{"rendered":"Teachers at Euan Blair firm report \u2018horrendous stress\u2019 after AI used to rate their work | AI (artificial intelligence)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Teachers at Euan Blair\u2019s \u00a31.6bn tech training company, Multiverse, have blown the whistle about \u201chorrendous stress\u201d and feeling constantly watched after bosses started using AI models to surveil and rate their teaching.<\/p>\n

Staff delivering apprenticeship training in computer and AI skills to thousands of UK public and private sector workers now have transcripts of online classroom sessions analysed and scored by an AI programmed to alert human managers when they are suspected of doing things wrong.<\/p>\n

The AI is trained to flag problems in their performance ranging from not fixing a disruption to the online connection quickly enough \u2013 within about a minute \u2013 to using too many \u201cfiller\u201d phrases, such as \u201csort of\u201d and \u201ckind of\u201d.<\/p>\n

Teachers called the newly introduced system \u201cremorseless\u201d and \u201cunnerving\u201d, and said some staff were on edge, losing sleep and seeking therapy.<\/p>\n

Multiverse was co-founded by the eldest son of the former prime minister Tony Blair<\/a> and employs more than 800 people. It supplies AI and digital skills training to workers in the NHS, local councils, universities and the private sector, mostly funded through the government\u2019s apprenticeship levy.<\/p>\n

Euan Blair owns a large minority stake in Multiverse, putting his personal net worth at an estimated \u00a3350m. Photograph: Yui Mok\/PA<\/p>\n

Alongside his father, Blair is a supporter of wider AI adoption in the UK economy, claiming<\/a> last week that \u201cevery single worker is going to need to be retrained\u201d and that employers want their workforces \u201cas AI-pilled as possible\u201d. Multiverse uses a mix of AI models including Anthropic and OpenAI products.<\/p>\n

Its new AI teacher monitoring system tags each instructor by their \u201crisk status\u201d, calculates a \u201cpercentage confidence score\u201d and produces written comments about teachers\u2019 work for managers to see at a glance.<\/p>\n

It is only the latest example of employers using AI to track worker behaviour. Earlier this year Burger King<\/a> started using AI to track restaurant workers\u2019 customer interactions and this summer Meta paused<\/a> tracking of employees\u2019 computer keystrokes amid data privacy concerns and a staff backlash.<\/p>\n

With critics warning AI monitoring risks eroding human agency, one study has suggested it can backfire by turning workers rebellious<\/a> and new research to be published this week reports that workers in the wider UK tech industry are finding AI degrades work satisfaction. The United Tech and Allied Workers branch of the Communication Workers Union concluded AI causes \u201ccognitive surrender\u201d as workers lose skills and confidence and often intensifies rather than eases work.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince all of this has come in, the stress level has been absolutely horrendous,\u201d said one of several Multiverse teachers who spoke on condition of anonymity. \u201cIt has affected sleep, and not just for me. I\u2019ve gone through a lot of things in my life, and I haven\u2019t ever been in a position where I\u2019m waking up in the middle of the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

Previously instructors were observed monthly by a human manager but are now watched for several hours a day by an AI. It is trained to consider marking instructors down if they give vague or uncertain answers to questions, if learners go quiet when asked to contribute and if the teacher gets pulled into a prolonged one-to-one exchange that sidelines the group.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is inducing stress because you consistently have to be cautious,\u201d one teacher said. \u201cYour attention is no longer delivering [the lesson] and listening to the learner [but] \u2018am I saying the right thing so the AI doesn\u2019t mark me down for something stupid that I\u2019ve mistakenly said\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another teacher called it \u201cvery uncomfortable\u201d.<\/p>\n

Multiverse says the AI does not replace human judgment but \u201cdirects human time to where it\u2019s needed most\u201d by highlighting problems. A spokesperson said it was \u201cusing AI to improve the experience of learners and customers\u201d, and that only human managers wrote teachers\u2019 performance reviews.<\/p>\n

They did not directly address complaints the system caused stress and anxiety and felt \u201cremorseless\u201d, but said its introduction was communicated in advance and teachers will have access to the data the AI collects.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis agent provides instructors with improved advice on development and feedback \u2013 exactly how any learning organisation should be deploying AI,\u201d the spokesperson said. \u201cThe most consequential performance management action it can take is to recommend that a human personally reviews a session.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Blair owns a large minority stake in Multiverse, putting his personal net worth at an estimated \u00a3350m. The company was recently valued at \u00a31.6bn albeit on a turnover of \u00a3118m and losses of \u00a328m last year. In February, Ofsted, the UK education inspectorate, found<\/a> Multiverse failed to meet expected standards in several areas, but praised the instructors as \u201cskilled, effective teachers\u201d.<\/p>\n

Its AI monitoring agent, introduced in recent weeks, is trained to spot signs an instructor has not fully internalised the teaching material. It is instructed to count verbal tics that point to that conclusion and to \u201cjudge the PATTERN across the whole transcript, not isolated instances\u201d.<\/p>\n

It says: \u201c1-2 hedges or filler words in an otherwise direct, well-internalised explanation do NOT fail this standard \u2026 What fails the standard is a PERVASIVE REPEATED pattern of filler, hedging or re-explanation.\u201d<\/p>\n

When a trainer is setting a task \u201cif the instructor is visibly confused themselves or had to self-correct while giving the instruction, that confusion itself counts as evidence the instruction was not clear the first time\u201d. The AI is told to apply a negative mark \u201ceven if it was eventually straightened out\u201d.<\/p>\n

The workers said the AI monitoring had led to managers pulling them up for suspected \u201cdigressions\u201d when in fact they were answering a student\u2019s question.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s impossible for me not to be affected by this mentally,\u201d one teacher said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like I\u2019m under continuous scrutiny,\u201d another said. \u201cIt\u2019s all about what I didn\u2019t do in this session rather than what I did do. Did I do something incorrectly yesterday? What will I mess up on today? It\u2019s remorseless. I don\u2019t know why this is happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

John Chadfield, the national tech officer at the CWU, said the public would be horrified to hear of bosses \u201cdeploying deeply intrusive surveillance on workers\u201d but that \u201cthis news won\u2019t surprise tech workers who feel the reality of the tech sector \u2013 an industry in serious need of further regulation\u201d.<\/p>\n

He called for new laws to ensure AI was deployed in a socially responsible way and not to \u201cshut off job opportunities for young people, degrade the craft of skilled workers and make astronomical profit for a few\u201d.<\/p>\n

Anonymous: \u2018An AI judges my lessons. Multiverse calls it quality assurance \u2013 it feels like surveillance\u2019\u2018A more productive way to use AI would be to improve the teaching materials and raise the standard of what we teach.\u2019 Photograph: fig\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

double quotation markBeing constantly monitored by an AI is deeply uncomfortable. Imagine every word you say on the job being checked against a rubric that dictates what you\u2019re expected to say and how. That\u2019s the reality for me and my colleagues: every session we deliver to apprentices is now recorded and transcribed. It feels intrusive. Multiverse calls it quality assurance, but it feels like surveillance.<\/p>\n

Managers can now look at a dashboard showing how the AI has judged each of our sessions. It assigns a risk level to each of us: the risk of not having said the right things. That\u2019s stressful, for several reasons.<\/p>\n

First, the AI isn\u2019t always accurate. Managers are now tasked to investigate trainers for not following the script \u2013 at least according to the AI \u2013 when actually they were adapting the lesson to a learner\u2019s needs. The threat of being questioned in such detail, at any time, is a constant source of anxiety.<\/p>\n

Second, there is no transparency. During the rollout, all delivery staff were kept in the dark while the system was developed. We have no insight into the AI\u2019s analysis. The company says staff will get dashboard access in time, but for now only managers can see it.<\/p>\n

The need to always be cautious warps your priorities. Instead of focusing attention on the learner, you become obsessed with whether you\u2019re saying the right thing. Being on camera for most of the day is stressful in itself; being haunted by an AI makes it worse.<\/p>\n

A more productive way to use AI would be to improve the teaching materials and raise the standard of what we teach. Instead, the AI is checking whether the teacher managed to fill the gaps? As it stands, this is surveillance, not empowerment.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m worried about what this data is for. In a climate of AI replacing people, I can\u2019t help but worry it will be used to train AI to replace coaches and instructors altogether. Apprentices don\u2019t want that and neither do I, and I would never consent to my sessions being used this way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Teachers at Euan Blair\u2019s \u00a31.6bn tech training company, Multiverse, have blown the whistle about \u201chorrendous stress\u201d and feeling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":908578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-908577","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\/908577","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=908577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/908577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/908578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=908577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=908577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=908577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}