Meta's Employee Surveillance Program for AI Development Triggers Internal Revolt and Unionization Push

An Engineer's Post Protesting Laptop Surveillance Is Going Viral Inside Meta

Meta's decision to track employee keystrokes and mouse data is causing an uproar within the company. "Selfishly, I don't want my screen scraped because it feels like an invasion of my privacy," wrote an engineer in an internal post seen by nearly 20,000 coworkers this week. "But zooming out, I don't want to live in a world where humans -- employees or otherwise -- are exploited for their training data." The message aimed to rally support for a petition circulating inside the company since last Thursday that demands an end to what Meta calls the Model Capability Initiative. It's a piece of mandatory software that Meta began installing on the laptops of US employees last month. The tool records employees' screens when using certain apps with the goal of collecting "real examples of how people actually use" computers, including "mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus," according to Reuters. Meta has yet to say whether the initial data is paying off. "I'm mixed on Al. On one hand, I really enjoy using it to write software. On the other hand, I'm really nervous about its impact on the world," the engineer wrote in an internal forum for coders. "And what kind of norms are we establishing about how the technology is used, and how people are going to be treated?" The petition, also seen by WIRED, states that "It should not be the norm that companies of any size are permitted to exploit their employees by nonconsensually extracting their data for the purposes of Al training." In the US, employers generally have wide latitude to monitor workers' devices for security, training, evaluation, and safety purposes. But using these tools to build datasets that instruct AI systems on navigating computers without human supervision appears to be a new tactic -- and one that doesn't sit right with many Meta workers. Over the past few years, several companies have jumped into the race to develop agentic AI models. But when gathering data, they have typically tapped volunteers, sometimes paid, who are willing to have their computer activity recorded. Meta's decision to move forward with its tracking tool despite weeks of protest from employees has become one of the leading reasons for what 16 current and former employees recently described to WIRED as record-low morale. It's also the leading driver of an employee unionization effort at Meta's UK offices. "The workplace surveillance and training AI models is the No. 1 thing," says Eleanor Payne, a representative of United Tech and Allied Workers, which is helping organize Meta employees. She declined to specify the number of employees seeking to form a labor union but called it "significant" and unprecedented. While only US employees are currently subjected to tracking, UK employees are concerned for their colleagues and the potential for expansion of the program. "I think of it pretty much as a breakdown of trust," Payne says. New laws that eased unionization in the UK have encouraged employees about the chances of success, she adds. In Meta offices in California and New York, workers have been posting flyers in cafeterias and other communal areas pointing colleagues to the petition. Two employees, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, say the company has removed some posters, with those on bathroom walls seemingly staying up longer.

Meta employees are reportedly "miserable" between looming layoffs and AI push.

Meta recently began tracking employees' computer activity to train its AI models, plans to cut 10 percent of staff later this month, and is pushing "employees to make so many A.I. agents that others had to introduce agents to find agents, and agents to rate agents," sparking "anger and anxiety," reports the New York Times: Some said they no longer saw Meta as a place for a long career. Others were looking for new jobs or trying to signal that they wanted to be laid off so they could receive severance pay, the current and former employees said.

Meta employees are protesting the company's mouse tracking program - Engadget

Shockingly, Meta employees aren't too keen on training their robot replacements. Reuters reports that workers have begun circulating flyers at multiple US offices to protest the company's installation of tracking software on their work computers. "Don't want to work at the Employee Data Extraction Factory?" the flyers ask. They've reportedly been found in meeting rooms, on vending machines, and even in the most sacred of spaces: atop toilet paper dispensers. The pamphlets encourage employees to sign an online petition protesting Meta's employee surveillance program. The flyers and petition cite the US National Labor Relations Act. "Workers are legally protected when they choose to organize for the improvement of working conditions," the petition reads. A similar movement is underway in the UK, where workers began organizing a unionization campaign with United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW). It all stems from an announcement last month that Meta would install software on employees' computers to track their mouse movements, clicks, and keystrokes. The initiative, dubbed the Agent Transformation Accelerator (ATA), is designed to train AI agents to perform complex computing tasks. "This is where all Meta employees can help our models get better simply by doing their daily work," a company memo announcing the program read. "If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them -- things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told Reuters. The company tried to reassure its workers that sensitive information would be protected, claiming their data would be "tightly controlled." Employee reactions were less enthusiastic. "This makes me super uncomfortable," an engineering manager wrote in an internal message board comment, The New York Times reported a few weeks after the program was announced. Others expressed worries that they were helping to train their eventual replacements. "How do we opt out?", one employee asked. (CTO Andrew Bosworth confirmed that they can't, in fact, opt out.) It's hard to imagine workers warming to the move regardless of context. But the fact that ATA is coinciding with a 10 percent reduction of the company's workforce makes for an even more ominous backdrop. One employee reportedly commented that the program was "incredibly demoralizing." Another told Bosworth, "Your callousness to the concerns of your own employees is concerning." Workers have created websites counting down to the May 20 layoffs. (One describes the event as the "Big Beautiful Layoffs.") As for how many more workers will lose their jobs, Meta is still working on that. "We don't really know what the optimal size of the company will be in the future," CFO Susan Li told investors in April. "I think there's a lot of change right now, with AI capabilities advancing rapidly."

Meta is using its own employees' activity to train AI, and laying off 8,000 of them at the same time

Serving tech enthusiasts for over 25 years. TechSpot means tech analysis and advice you can trust. A hot potato: Meta is expanding how it monitors employee computer use as part of its push to improve artificial intelligence systems, a move that is drawing internal resistance. In an update shared with US employees and reviewed by The New York Times, Meta said it will begin collecting detailed data on how workers use their computers. That includes what they type, how they move their mouse, where they click, and what appears on their screens. Meta said the data will help its AI systems learn how people complete everyday tasks on a computer. The reaction inside Meta was immediate and, in many cases, negative. Employees raised concerns in internal forums, questioning both the scope of the tracking and the lack of an opt-out option. "This makes me super uncomfortable," one engineering manager wrote. "How do we opt out?" Andrew Bosworth, Meta's chief technology officer, replied. "There is no option to opt out on your corporate laptop." The response drew a wave of reactions, including more than 100 emojis expressing frustration and surprise. Meta says the data collection is narrowly focused. "There are safeguards in place to protect sensitive content, and the data is not used for any other purpose," said spokesman Tracy Clayton. Bosworth also addressed concerns about security in internal discussions, writing, "This data is very tightly controlled. This will not be a leak risk." The tracking effort comes as Meta restructures much of its work around AI. Since the release of ChatGPT in 2022, Meta has been investing heavily in AI models, infrastructure, and research, including a push toward what Mark Zuckerberg has described as "superintelligence." Those changes are now showing up in daily workflows. Employees are expected to use AI tools more regularly, and in some cases, their usage is being measured. Internally, Meta has introduced dashboards that track how many tokens employees use - a metric tied to AI processing. Several employees said the dashboards have turned usage into a form of competition. Some have begun building large numbers of AI agents to automate tasks, while others have built tools to manage or evaluate those agents. In some cases, this has led to layers of automation - agents reviewing other agents - as usage increases. At the same time, the company is cutting jobs. Meta said it plans to lay off about 10% of its workforce, roughly 8,000 employees, with cuts expected to take place in May. In an internal message, Janelle Gale, the company's head of human resources, said the reductions would help "offset the other investments we're making." She added: "I know this leaves everyone with nearly a month of ambiguity, which is incredibly unsettling." The overlap between layoffs and increased reliance on AI has added to the tension. Some employees have questioned whether they are helping build systems that could eventually replace parts of their own roles. "It's incredibly demoralizing," one employee wrote. Others have started looking for new jobs or trying to position themselves to receive severance. Similar tensions are emerging across the tech industry. Companies including Microsoft, Block, and Coinbase have all announced layoffs or buyouts as AI tools begin to change how work is done, particularly in software development. Tools that can generate code are reducing the amount of manual work required, which in turn is reshaping how teams are structured. "There is no playbook for AI in the workplace yet," Leo Boussioux, a professor of information systems at the University of Washington, told The New York Times. "AI can potentially make everyone a better coder and help them do way more things with fewer resources, but as a result, it also brings more intensity to the daily life of the worker." Meta executives have pushed back on the idea that the company is using the new tracking systems for employee surveillance. During a company-wide meeting, Zuckerberg said the data collection is not intended for "surveillance or performance tracking or anything like that," but instead to help train AI systems on "how smart people use computers to accomplish tasks." "I think we know that AI is one of the most competitive fields, probably in history," he said. Even at the leadership level, there is some uncertainty about where the changes will lead. "We don't really know what the optimal size of the company will be in the future," said Chief Financial Officer Susan Li during a recent investor call. "I think there's a lot of change right now, with AI capabilities advancing rapidly."

Meta's Embrace of A.I. Is Making Its Employees Miserable

In an internal post last month, Meta told its U.S. employees that it was making a change that would affect tens of thousands of them. What employees typed into their computer, how they moved their mouse, where they clicked and what they saw on their screen would be tracked, Meta said. The goal, the company said, was to capture employee data so Meta's artificial intelligence models could learn "how people actually complete everyday tasks using computers." Many workers immediately revolted. In online comments, they blasted the tracking as a privacy violation, calling it antisocial and callous. "This makes me super uncomfortable," an engineering manager wrote in a comment in response to the announcement, which was reviewed by The New York Times. "How do we opt out?" "There is no option to opt-out on your corporate laptop," replied Andrew Bosworth, Meta's chief technology officer. Employees reacted by posting more than 100 angry and surprised emojis, according to the messages. Mark Zuckerberg, Meta's chief executive, has staked the future of his company on A.I. by weaving the powerful technology into apps like Facebook and Instagram and spending hundreds of billions of dollars on developing A.I. models and data centers. But as the Silicon Valley company tries to transition from an internet firm to an A.I. organization, its embrace of the technology has been awkward and, at times, downright ugly. Meta is pushing its 78,000 employees to adopt A.I. tools and factoring their use of the technology in performance reviews. The company is also tracking employees' computer work to feed and train its A.I. models. And it is cutting jobs to offset its A.I. spending, saying last month that it would slash 10 percent of its work force. That has led to anger and anxiety as employees await news of whether they are affected by the layoffs, which are slated to be carried out on May 20, according to 11 current and former Meta employees. Some said they no longer saw Meta as a place for a long career. Others were looking for new jobs or trying to signal that they wanted to be laid off so they could receive severance pay, the current and former employees said. "It's incredibly demoralizing," an employee who does user research wrote in an internal post, which was reviewed by The Times. The angst at Meta offers a preview of what may happen at other tech companies as they increasingly incorporate A.I. into their workplaces. Microsoft, Block and Coinbase have recently announced layoffs or buyouts as A.I. has reshaped work. The technology has been particularly disruptive at tech firms because A.I. tools are useful at generating code, which was typically written by the software engineers who underpin many digital businesses. "A.I. can potentially make everyone a better coder and help them do way more things with fewer resources, but as a result, it also brings more intensity to the daily life of the worker," said Leo Boussioux, a professor of information systems at the University of Washington. "There is no playbook for A.I. in the workplace yet." In a statement, Tracy Clayton, a Meta spokesman, said the purpose of the new employee tracking program was to train the company's A.I. products. "There are safeguards in place to protect sensitive content, and the data is not used for any other purpose," he said. Reuters and The Information earlier reported some details of Meta's internal A.I. push. Meta began reorienting itself around A.I. not long after OpenAI released the ChatGPT chatbot in 2022. Last summer, Mr. Zuckerberg spent billions to create a lab for "superintelligence," a futuristic form of A.I. that can act as the ultimate personal assistant, and overhauled its A.I. division. Mr. Zuckerberg, 41, has spoken at length about how superintelligence will improve people's lives. In March, Meta organized "A.I. Transformation Weeks" for its workers, five current and former employees said. The aim was to teach employees how to use A.I. coding tools and A.I. agents, which are digital assistants that can do tasks by themselves. Product designers, who style the way products look and how people interact with products, were told to use A.I. to try coding, and software coders were told to use A.I. to try designing products. Meta also introduced internal dashboards to track employees' consumption of "tokens," a unit of A.I. use that is roughly equivalent to four characters of text, four people said. Some said the dashboards were a pressure tactic to encourage competition with colleagues. That led some employees to make so many A.I. agents that others had to introduce agents to find agents, and agents to rate agents, two people said. On April 17, Reuters reported that Meta would soon lay off 10 percent of employees. Workers fretted over whether they had been training their A.I. replacements, three people said. After Meta said late last month that it would start tracking employees' computer use, hundreds of workers spoke up. "Your callousness to the concerns of your own employees is concerning," one employee told Mr. Bosworth in an internal post. In other posts that day, employees questioned whether Meta could safely secure the data it collected from workers while using that information to train A.I. models. "This data is very tightly controlled," Mr. Bosworth replied. "This will not be a leak risk." Two days later, Meta announced that it would lay off about 8,000 people this month. The cuts will allow the company "to offset the other investments we're making," Janelle Gale, Meta's head of human resources, said in an internal message. She added, "I know this leaves everyone with nearly a month of ambiguity which is incredibly unsettling." Some employees have since shared layoff guides and nihilistic memes. "It do not matter," read one meme shared internally. Employees have created at least three websites counting down to the May 20 layoffs, with one website's header reading: "Big Beautiful Layoff," a play on the 2025 domestic policy law that President Trump called the "One Big Beautiful Bill." Meta has hinted at more changes. "We don't really know what the optimal size of the company will be in the future," Susan Li, the chief financial officer, said during a call with investors last week. "I think there's a lot of change right now, with A.I. capabilities advancing rapidly." The day after the investor call, Mr. Zuckerberg held a companywide question-and-answer meeting, along with other executives. During the meeting, a recording of which The Times reviewed, Mr. Zuckerberg said Meta was not gathering data on employees for "surveillance or performance tracking or anything like that." Instead, the data would train A.I. on "how smart people use computers to accomplish tasks," he said. "I think we know that A.I. is one of the most competitive fields, probably in history," Mr. Zuckerberg added. Mike Isaac contributed reporting from San Francisco.

Meta employees protest new mouse-tracking software days before mass layoffs

Flyers framing the Model Capability Initiative as an 'Employee Data Extraction Factory' appeared in US offices on Tuesday, with a petition and a UK unionisation drive in train By Tuesday afternoon, the flyers were everywhere. Meta employees at several US offices walked into meeting rooms, broke for coffee at vending machines, and used the restrooms only to find pamphlets denouncing the company's new mouse-tracking software as an "Employee Data Extraction Factory" and urging staff to sign an online petition against it. The leaflets cited the National Labor Relations Act and the right to organise for the improvement of working conditions, according to Reuters' exclusive. The protest is the first visible internal pushback against the Model Capability Initiative, the tracking programme TNW reported on last week, which captures mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, and screenshots on a designated list of work applications. Meta has said the data is used to teach AI agents how humans navigate software, and that it runs only on a specified set of apps and websites rather than across all computer activity. The framing has not landed evenly. "If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them, things like mouse movements, clicking buttons, and navigating dropdown menus," Meta said in a statement, adding that "safeguards" were in place to protect sensitive company information. Many employees, according to Reuters, read the programme as workplace surveillance reframed as training data, and a step toward automating their own jobs. The timing has sharpened that read. Meta is roughly a week from its 20 May layoffs, which the company has said will cut about 10% of its workforce, or some 8,000 of its 78,865 staff, with further cuts planned for the second half of 2026. Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg told an earnings call in January that 2026 would be "the year that AI starts to dramatically change the way that we work." Inside the company, that line is now being read as a description of which jobs are being captured into a dataset. The protest infrastructure is more organised than spontaneous. The flyers point employees to a petition; UK colleagues have already begun a unionisation drive with United Tech and Allied Workers, recruiting under a website at Leanin.uk. The campaign is small relative to Meta's headcount, but it is the kind of internal-cohesion problem Meta has historically avoided. The company's last visible bout of staff dissent, the 2018 walkouts over sexual-harassment policies, ended in policy changes rather than retaliation. The data-protection layer is the second front. The Model Capability Initiative, as disclosed in the internal memo seen by Reuters, runs on company-issued machines and is framed by Meta as voluntary in spirit but mandatory in practice for staff using the designated apps. Whether that survives scrutiny in jurisdictions with stronger employee-privacy regimes is unclear; the EU's existing rules on workplace surveillance set a higher bar for proportionality and worker consent than US federal law currently does. Meta's earlier internal controversies over AI training data have not gone smoothly either. Last month, a breach at the company's data-labelling vendor Mercor put parts of its AI training pipeline at risk and prompted a temporary freeze on some data work. The 20 May cuts are still to come. The petition, by Tuesday evening, was still circulating.

Meta workers revolt against mouse tracking technology -- flyers ask if they want to work at 'the Employee Data ​Extraction Factory'

Meta workers are seriously unhappy about mouse tracking software * Meta's Model Capability Initiative installs mouse tracking software on company-issued PCs * User activity is monitored to train future AI models to autonomously control computers * Workers fear that future AI systems could replace human jobs Employees at Meta have started protesting against the company's rollout of mouse tracking software being deployed on work devices - but it's not entirely for privacy reasons. Facebook's parent company is reportedly installing software that monitors mouse movements, clicks, keystrokes, menu and dropdown navigation and even what's on users' screens, and it's all said to be in aid of training AI agents to perform real-world computer tasks more naturally. Consequentially, workers are now fighting back against this move over concerns that they're effectively helping train AI systems that could eventually replace members of the workforce. Meta's mouse tracking criticized for fuelling potential job cuts Now, according to Reuters, posters are appearing across Meta's offices asking 'Don't want to work at the Employee Data Extraction Factory?'. "If we're building agents to help people complete everyday tasks using computers, our models need real examples of how people actually use them," Meta spokesperson Andy Stone explained. The Model Capability Initiative (MCI) was revealed in an April 22 memo internally, and promised an opportunity for "all Meta employees [to] help [its] models get better simply by doing their daily work." However, reports suggest there is no opt-out for employees using company-issued devices, giving them no say in the matter. The timing of this isn't insignificant - we already know Meta is set to lay off around 10% of its workers (or 8,000 individuals) this month. "Meta's workers are paying the price for management's ⁠reckless and expensive bets," United Tech and Allied Workers (UTAW) organizer Eleanor Payne added. "While executives chase speculative AI strategies, staff are facing devastating job cuts, draconian surveillance, and the cruel reality of being forced to train the inefficient systems being positioned to replace them." Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.

Meta Employee Attacks Zuckerberg for Collecting Every Employee Keystroke: "I Don't Want to Live in a World Where Humans -- Employees or Otherwise -- Are Exploited for Their Training Data"

Can't-miss innovations from the bleeding edge of science and tech Mark Zuckerberg's new initiative to track employee computer use is tearing the company apart. In a sign that those simmering tensions are boiling over into open revolt, some workers are sending clear shots across the bow. "Selfishly, I don't want my screen scraped because it feels like an invasion of my privacy," an engineer wrote this week in an internal post seen by nearly 20,000 coworkers, Wired reported. "But zooming out, I don't want to live in a world where humans -- employees or otherwise -- are exploited for their training data." The initiative at the center of the debate, called the Model Capability Initiative, closely tracks employees' keyboard strokes, mouse data, and records their screens while using certain apps. Meta leadership claims that this data will be used to teach its AI models "how people actually complete everyday tasks using computers," amid the industry's heavy push into AI agents that can perform tasks on your behalf. Despite half-hearted assurances from Meta chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth that the data would be "tightly controlled," many employees see it as a blatant violation of their privacy (and that's without even getting into Zuckerberg's own dismal history with accessing users' private data.) It comes at a time when morale at the company is at a nadir. As part of Zuckerberg's all-in AI push, Meta announced it would fire ten percent of its workforce, or nearly 8,000 employees, leaving many uncertain about their future. The company is also demanding that employees produce more than ever by using AI agents and coding tools as much as possible, with AI usage now a factor in performance reviews. The gloomy esprit de corps could easily turned into numb acceptance of Meta's AI regime, but the Model Capability Initiative clearly struck a nerve and has sparked open acts of mild defiance. Per Wired, a petition calling to end it has been circulating inside the company since last week. It states that "it should not be the norm that companies of any size are permitted to exploit their employees by nonconsensually extracting their data for the purposes of Al training." Employees have been posting flyers in communal areas like cafeterias and in bathrooms that advertise the petition. As such, the Meta engineer who called the data tracking initiative an "invasion of my privacy" was summarizing the current sentiment brewing in the ranks. "Layoffs, budget cuts, years of efficiency and intensity -- all of it contributed to a growing sense of dread," the employee wrote, per Wired. "MCI is a microcosm for the Al movement," the engineer added. "Yes, it's just a small turn of the temperature knob, but it's representative of the types of systems that people will be compelled to build." In some respects, these criticisms are tinged with irony. Of all the Big Tech companies, Meta's privacy track record is generally seen as the worst of the worst (two words: Cambridge Analytica). For its employees to turn around now and be shocked that the surveillance boomerang has come back to hurt them, too, is a little rich. It could be a scales-falling-from-the-eyes moment, or it could be a blip in the corporate monolith's operations. Whatever happens, it's clear that Zuckerberg's is losing his grip on the rank and file.

Meta's own employees are having a hard time digesting AI. Who would've thought?

If you wanted a snapshot of what it looks like when a tech giant tries to force-feed its workforce an AI future, look no further than Meta right now. The company that built its empire on knowing everything about its users has turned that same appetite inward, and its employees are not happy about it. Last month, Meta quietly informed tens of thousands of its U.S. workers that their corporate laptops would begin tracking their keystrokes, mouse movements, clicks, and screen activity. The purpose was to feed that behavioral data into Meta's AI models so they could learn how people actually use computers. The reaction was immediate -- within hours, internal comment threads were flooded with anger, confusion, and more than a hundred emoji reactions that left little to the imagination about how employees felt. When an engineering manager asked how to opt out, Meta's chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, had a blunt answer: there was no opt-out, at least not on a company laptop. This is the same company that is also tying AI tool usage to performance reviews, running mandatory "AI Transformation Weeks" to retrain its workforce, and building internal dashboards that gamify how many AI tokens employees consume in a day -- a metric so aggressively tracked that some workers started building AI agents to manage their other AI agents. The whole thing started to resemble a feedback loop eating itself. The layoffs just made everything worse None of this is happening in a vacuum. On April 17, news broke that Meta was planning to cut roughly 10% of its workforce -- around 8,000 people -- with the first wave scheduled for May 20. Employees who had spent weeks being told to embrace AI, train with AI, and now have their computer behavior harvested to train AI were suddenly also wondering whether they had spent that time building their own replacements. The timing was, to put it generously, awful. Internal posts described the mood as "incredibly demoralizing." At least three countdown websites appeared, tracking the days to the layoff date. Employees circulated nihilistic memes. One popular internal post simply read: "It does not matter." Mark Zuckerberg addressed the data collection at a company-wide meeting, framing it not as surveillance but as a way to teach AI how "smart people use computers to accomplish tasks." He also noted that AI is "probably one of the most competitive fields in history" -- a line that landed differently for people sitting in an office, wondering if they'd still have a job in three weeks. This is just a preview of what's coming everywhere What's unfolding at Meta isn't limited to Meta; it's just further along than most. Microsoft, Coinbase, and Block have all made similar moves recently, restructuring around AI that has led to layoffs and internal friction. The difference is that Meta is doing all of it simultaneously and at scale: retraining workers, surveilling their behavior, tying job security to AI adoption metrics, and cutting headcount to fund the whole endeavor. There is no clean way to do any of this. An employee revolt over keystroke tracking at one of the world's most powerful technology companies -- one that is, among other things, actively building AI systems designed to monitor and understand human behavior -- is its own kind of irony. Meta spent years convincing billions of people to share their data willingly. Getting its own employees on board is proving considerably harder.

Meta Workers Protest Cursor Tracking Software, Company Says 'Safeguards' In Place To Protect Sensitive Co

Meta Employees Push Back Against Surveillance Tools Workers at several U.S. Meta offices distributed flyers criticizing the company's recently installed mouse-tracking software, Reuters reported on Tuesday. The software monitors computer activity such as cursor movement, clicks and navigation patterns. Pamphlets appeared in meeting spaces, on vending machines and even in restroom areas, urging colleagues to oppose what organizers described as an "Employee Data Extraction Factory." The protest comes roughly one week before Meta is expected to cut 10% of its workforce, deepening employee anxiety over job security. AI Expansion Fuels Worker Fears Many workers reportedly believe the software is not just a productivity tool but part of Meta's push to gather behavioral data that could train AI systems designed to automate workplace functions. In an emailed statement to Benzinga, Meta referred to the previous statement the company has shared on AI trading data. The spokesperson defended the program, saying such data provides "real examples" of computer use necessary to improve AI agents that can perform everyday digital tasks. "There are safeguards in place to protect sensitive content and the data is not used for any other purpose," the spokesperson added. Labor Organizing Gains Momentum Inside Meta Meta's layoffs, coupled with its shift toward an "AI-native" model and increased productivity tracking, have reportedly triggered internal employee backlash. However, during a town hall earlier, Mark Zuckerberg said AI efficiency tools are not the primary driver of the cuts. The flyers also referenced protections under U.S. labor law, signaling early organizing efforts within the social media giant. In the U.K., Meta employees have reportedly begun unionization efforts through United Tech and Allied Workers, where organizers condemned "draconian surveillance" and criticized management's aggressive AI strategy. Price Action: Meta shares closed Tuesday at $603.00, up 0.69%, before slipping 0.18% to $601.93 in after-hours trading, according to Benzinga Pro. According to Benzinga Edge Rankings, Meta scores in the 89th percentile for growth, though its stock has shown a negative price trend across short, medium and long-term time frames. Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Photo: Skorzewiak / Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.