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Some employers already monitor what workers do on company devices. Now, they could use software to help train AI agents. Jonathan Brady/PA Images via Getty Images More employers are monitoring what workers do on company devices. Now, Meta is tracking some employees' actions to help train AI agents. Such practices mark an "evolution of workplace surveillance," said one corporate observer. Click. Drag. Train. More companies are monitoring what you do on your work laptop or phone. Surveillance could also help show AI how you do your job. Across industries, companies are investing heavily in AI agents that can automate tasks and make decisions. To build the best agents, employers often need high-quality data to model real work. Now, on top of using software to ensure you're working and following the rules, companies can use your clicks as how-to data for those agents. "This is the evolution of workplace surveillance — from measuring work to learning how to replace it," said Dan Schawbel, managing partner at the research firm Workplace Intelligence. Watching how you work Employer surveillance has grown because of the rise of remote work and because of a proliferation of tools that allow for monitoring, the US Government Accountability Office reported in September. Employers such as AT&T have used technology to keep tabs on who shows up at the office, while JPMorgan is tracking software engineers' AI use and monitoring them via dashboards, Business Insider reported Thursday. However, increasingly, companies don't just want the report you drafted or the code you (or, more likely, your AI) produced. They want to see how you made the proverbial sausage. That's because how you work — from emails to Slack messages — can be a goldmine for employers trying to understand the ways you make decisions and get things done. For companies, the appeal is clear. Detailed, real-world examples of how workers work are among the most valuable inputs for building effective agents. It's not like training a large language model, where scraping the internet might be enough. Worker data, sometimes called "digital exhaust," is often highly specific and directly relevant to a company's operations. Meta is deploying an internal tool that tracks employee activity — including things like keystrokes and mouse movements — to help train AI systems, Business Insider reported on Tuesday. The goal, the tech giant said in an internal memo, is to better understand how workers complete tasks so that AI agents can replicate or assist with those processes. Some Meta employees raised concerns about how closely the company would monitor their work. A Meta spokesperson said in a statement on Wednesday that agents need real examples of how people use computers. "There are safeguards in place to protect sensitive content, and the data is not used for any other purpose," the spokesperson said. Workplace Intelligence's Schawbel said that for any company with loads of high-achieving workers, understanding more about how employees do their jobs brings enormous benefits. "Companies aren't just tracking productivity anymore. They're capturing institutional knowledge in real time," he said. "This is unbelievably valuable." An incomplete picture While some companies might dream of training agents based on what workers do all day, it's not easy to do. Employers are generally sitting on far more worker data than they can readily use, said Emily Rose McRae, senior director analyst at the research firm Gartner. Often, she said, companies store this information and don't use it — or decide not to keep it — because doing so is costly and poses security risks. While AI's ability to make sense of this information can be "incredibly powerful," she said, the data companies have doesn't necessarily capture the full picture of what a worker does. "Even the data we have may not be the data we need to be able to understand people's jobs," McRae said. Training AI on workers' usage data can be easier for certain roles, such as software development, where much of the work is done on computers, and there are clearly defined steps, she said. "A lot of other work is a little bit more complicated than that," McRae said. She credited Meta for its decision to disclose its monitoring to workers. Too often, she said, employees aren't aware of what companies are collecting. "If you don't tell people and they find it out, it feels like a betrayal," McRae said. 'Trust erosion' Schawbel sees increased monitoring generally as a sign of a continued "trust erosion" between workers and employers. Companies can get away with even unpopular moves because of the power they tend to hold in the job market, he said. That's likely one reason — besides keeping their job — why workers fearful of being replaced by AI might still go along with this type of monitoring, Schawbel said. "If training these AI agents that might take my job in two years buys me two years to hold this job, so be it," he said. Schawbel expects that, tech challenges aside, more companies will likely try to use the data they collect to train agents. In part, because they're investing so heavily in AI. For tech firms, which are under pressure from investors to show the fruits of their AI outlays, the benefit is twofold, he said: They get to use AI to improve their own operations by introducing agents, and companies can show potential customers for their AI products and services how to do it, too. Schawbel said that even as companies consider automating some positions, leaders have long touted workers as being a company's most valuable resource. Now, because workers can train AI, they can be a company's "best technology asset," too, he said. Do you have a story to share about your experience with AI at work? Contact this reporter at tparadis@businessinsider.com. Read the original article on Business Insider

JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon has championed the bank's AI push. Noam Galai/Getty; Getty Images; Tyler Le/BI JPMorgan is scoring engineers' AI use and tracking them with internal dashboards. Some developers say managers cite usage data in meetings about performance. The push is fueling pressure, some say, even as many find the tools boost productivity. JPMorgan is pushing its engineers to use AI more and tracking them with internal dashboards visible to thousands of their peers, ramping up pressure on workers to prove they're keeping up. The bank recently told developers in its roughly 65,000-person Global Technology division to show "meaningful improvement" in both the quality and volume of their code by using AI. Behind the scenes, it's also built internal tools to measure that progress, including dashboards that rank engineers based on their usage of tools like GitHub Copilot and Anthropic's Claude, and a formula to categorize users. Business Insider reviewed screenshots of these systems and spoke to seven current and former developers. They described a growing push to produce more, faster, as managers become increasingly aware of how often employees use AI. While some said the tools are helpful, most were also worried about being flagged as underperformers if their usage doesn't rise. A JPMorgan spokesperson said the bank does not incorporate the data in "performance management," and instead tracks it to measure the effectiveness of its AI investments. "Gathering data and feedback enables us to provide training and support in the right ways to the right people," the spokesperson said, adding that the bank is "acutely aware that the power of these tools are only realized when people, process, and technology come together." JPMorgan isn't alone in intensifying its expectations around employees' adoption of AI. Business Insider has reported on how companies across industries are under pressure to prove their AI investments are paying off, including Meta and Google, which have set goals for AI-assisted code and allow managers to mandate the use of agents, respectively. Others, like Disney, are also tracking usage through internal dashboards. Tracking AI use at the individual level is not something that Sameer Gupta, head of AI in financial services in the Americas at EY, has previously heard of at banks. While he couldn't comment on specific banks' activities, he's seen firms track AI usage across teams, which he said can help a company determine which AI tools work, and how to address roadblocks. "In general, people don't like to be tracked. Set aside AI for a second," Gupta said. "If somebody is tracking how many total hours in a day you are on Teams and videoconferencing, it makes you uncomfortable." Inside the effort In public, JPMorgan's leaders, including CEO Jamie Dimon, have touted the firm's embrace of artificial intelligence, backed by its nearly $20 billion tech budget. During the bank's most recent earnings call this month, he predicted that AI would soon be table stakes. Most of the engineers Business Insider spoke to said that they wanted more clarity on which metrics matter. Business Insider has seen two dashboards tracking engineers' use of GitHub Copilot, a key hub combining access to multiple AI tools. One dashboard displayed data about employees' AI adoption and usage rates, listing nearly 70,000 people as "provisioned users" of Copilot; about 24,000 were listed as recently "active" users as of late March, per a screenshot. Tens of thousands of employees' records were available, listing the most recent day they'd been active using AI tools, their office location, and their reporting lines. The other dashboard characterizes them as "non," "light," or "heavy" users. According to a screenshot of an internal Microsoft Teams channel viewed by Business Insider, a developer in the Global Technology group sent a message to dozens of colleagues warning them to check whether they had been added to what the sender called the "naughty list" of AI users. The warning included a link to what appeared to be a large database of individual employees' AI usage rates, with another link to where those who believed they were wrongly listed as under-users could seek their removal from the list. The developer also encouraged others to download Copilot if they hadn't already and open it once a month to avoid getting flagged by the system. One engineer said he checks one of the dashboards frequently, worried that the system might not be capturing the full extent of the activities he performs with AI. Another who recently left the firm said a direct manager told them in a meeting several months before that they were "showing up as a nonuser of artificial intelligence" and should "get to using it." The multi-part formula One intranet document outlines the bank's daily scoring system that tracks how engineers use GitHub Copilot tools. Those interactions are weighted, with higher scores for proactive use, like starting a prompt, and lower scores for passive actions, like accepting code an LLM has written. The activity is aggregated into a quarterly score that rates engineers as above or below the median use rate in their line of business, "allowing us to compare performance" from one quarter to the next. "The general vibe feels like we have to be going 110% every day, all week," one midlevel developer said. "It's so interesting. I thought this AI tool was supposed to make our lives easier, but it really seems to have stepped up how much we're expected to do." Other engineers can relate — developers across white-collar industries have told Business Insider that AI has significantly heightened their workload, while others have reckoned with a loss of personal identity as LLMs have taken over tasks they spent years learning to perform. As some engineers have slowly gained access to Claude Code, Anthropic's AI coding agent, another dashboard has emerged. Screenshots show it tracked more than 600 people as of early April, including adoption rates and spending per user and in total. Other documents showed that developers were working on several additional tools that could augment the bank's tracking capabilities if adopted. The specter of past tracking JPMorgan's history of tracking employee engagement, from office attendance to time spent on Zoom, is intensifying the anxiety for some, particularly in offices affected by pre-planned layoffs this year, three of the developers said. The new goals for AI usage have some people "a little freaked out," one programmer with almost half a decade of experience at the bank said. "In some areas, I think it's probably scarier just because they realize that they have way too many people for the level of work that they need to get done." His manager's words of advice? Get familiar with the tools and use them often, "because no matter where you end up going, whether it's within the company or whether you get laid off in the coming years, this is what the job's going to look like no matter what." Have a tip? Contact these reporters via email at ralexander@businessinsider.com or SMS/Signal at 561-247-5758 or atecotzky@insider.com or Signal at alicetecotzky.05. Use a personal email address, a nonwork WiFi network, and a nonwork device; here's our guide to sharing information securely. Read the original article on Business Insider

Louis Squires opened the Magnolia Room Cafeteria. Business Insider When an old S&S Cafeteria closed down, Louis Squires wanted to help save the jobs and food he loved. He bought the old equipment, opened a new location, and called it the Magnolia Room Cafeteria. Squires lacked restaurant experience, but his push for quality and bold flavor made it work. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Louis Squires, 71, owner of Magnolia Room Cafeteria in Tucker, Georgia. It has been edited for length and clarity. I had been a regular customer at the S&S cafeteria in the Atlanta suburbs for years. So, when I heard the 43-year-old institution was closing down, I stepped in. I knew the staff and didn't want to see the place disappear. I thought I could rescue it and save the jobs and the food I loved. So, in 2017, I acquired the S&S equipment and moved it into an old dinner theater. At the time I ran a consulting firm, and before that I'd built my career in retail, working as a buyer and division manager at Macy's. Needless to say, I had zero experience running a restaurant, and I quickly realized how little I understood. Louis Squires is cutting the red ribbon for the opening of the Magnolia Room. Courtesy of the Magnolia Room Cafeteria I had never managed a team of 30-plus people, and I didn't know how restaurant equipment worked or how expensive repairs could be. I don't even enjoy cooking, but I do know how to eat, and I think that's what saved me. The labor cost of repairs on old equipment eats you alive The early years were an absolute disaster, and we didn't turn a profit for the first six years. One of the biggest issues was that we were using decades-old equipment that kept failing. I bought all the old cooking and serving equipment for $24,000 — that included the 50-foot stainless-steel serving line, which would cost six figures on its own. Magnolia Room Cafeteria's 50-foot-long stainless steel serving line. Business Insider So, it was a bargain in that respect, but a burden when it came to repairs. Nearly every part of the kitchen — from the convection ovens and steam tables to refrigeration — eventually failed. The turning point was when we started reinvesting in newer, more reliable equipment. We no longer had massive repair bills and were finally able to start making a profit. Why I focused on quality over everything Louis Squires runs the Magnolia Room Cafeteria. Business Insider From the beginning, I set one rule: we would not cut corners on food. Many Southern cafeterias declined because they switched to canned or frozen ingredients to hit lower price points. I chose the opposite approach. From pie crusts to vegetables, Magnolia Room cooks everything from scratch. One of my favorite dishes is our catfish, which we ship fresh from Mississippi twice a week. When we first opened, we couldn't get fresh catfish; it was frozen and trucked in. It wasn't anywhere near the quality and flavor of what we're serving now. But over the years, we've learned to source fresher ingredients, and it makes a difference. Crab-stuffed catfish at Magnolia Room Cafeteria. Business Insider I will always raise the price before I cut the quality, and that decision has shaped everything. It made the business more labor-intensive, but it's helped us build a reputation for fresh, homemade Southern food, which has brought regular customers back and attracted a new, younger crowd. Running a cafeteria requires volume. I learned early that without high traffic, the economics don't work. We now serve up to 1,000 to 1,200 customers on a busy Sunday. Sales are up 18% year over year, and we approached nearly $5 million in annual revenue in 2025. What made it work Multiple dishes from Magnolia Room Cafeteria, including pie, deviled eggs, atfish, fresh roll, collard greens, and fried okra. Business Insider Looking back, there were multiple times when I was very tempted to walk away. What's kept me in the game is the people who depend on me for their jobs and the community of customers we've built. To anyone looking to start a restaurant, here's my advice: You've got to find your passion for a cuisine and know how it is supposed to taste. I grew up in North Carolina, and I've always loved Southern cooking. I knew how the collard greens were supposed to taste and how I wanted the fried chicken. That was my north star. Read the original article on Business Insider

Fran Tarkenton is an NFL Hall-of-Fame quarterback. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Fran Tarkenton said John Ternus can learn something from Steve Jobs. Jobs once told Cook not to look backward when making decisions about Apple. Tarkenton has been an Apple investor since 2015. The new guy who's soon to be in charge at Apple has big shoes to fill, and he can't follow in his predecessors' footsteps. Longtime Apple investor and NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Fran Tarkenton told Business Insider that Apple's incoming CEO should follow the advice Steve Jobs once gave his successor, Tim Cook. Jobs encouraged Cook, who was better known for his operational prowess than as a product visionary, to do things his own way when he became CEO in 2011. "He said to Tim Cook, When you've got to make a decision, don't say to yourself, what would Steve Jobs do? You do what you think is the best thing for the company," Tarkenton said. Cook previously spoke about Jobs' words at a 2011 memorial tribute, Bloomberg reported. John Ternus, Apple's senior vice president of hardware engineering, is set to succeed Tim Cook as CEO in September. His hardware background marks a return to the product-focused leadership of Jobs' era, rather than Cook's focus on services and chips made by Apple. Ternus is "the right guy at the right time," Tarkenton said. The eyes of the tech industry are on Apple to deliver its next big innovation or make a meaningful move in the AI arms race. Tarkenton said Cook has been "terrific" for Apple and has grown its services business into a behemoth that outpaces some of its products in revenue. But, he said, Ternus has to rely on his 25 years of experience at Apple to be successful. "He cannot be Tim Cook," Tarkenton said. Tarkenton, a Minnesota Vikings legend who earned most of his wealth after leaving the league, said he began investing in Apple around 2015 after researching the company. He's owned hundreds of thousands of shares, according to records previously viewed by Business Insider. And he's as bullish on the stock as ever. "I've never sold any of the stock, and I reinvest the dividends every quarter," he said. Ternus has worked at Apple since 2001. Tarkenton said his insiders at Apple started whispering Ternus's name as a potential successor five years ago. As recently as last month, Cook brushed off rumors that he would be stepping back from his duties anytime soon, telling "Good Morning America" that he couldn't imagine his life without Apple. Cook is staying on as executive chairman after passing on the CEO mantle. Tarkenton said he trusted Apple's leadership to choose the right person. "The teams that win have the best coaches, and the best coaches make sure they get the best players," Tarkenton said. "Apple does that naturally." Read the original article on Business Insider

Peggy Lynn Marchetti before her facelift, in the immediate aftermath, and how she looks now. Courtesy of Peggy Lynn Marchetti Peggy Lynn Marchetti, daughter of the late country-music singer Loretta Lynn, wanted a facelift. She decided to ignore her friends' and family's concerns and travel to Guadalajara for the surgery. The mom of two said the operation — costing a third of her identical twin's facelift— was a win-win. This interview is based on a conversation with Peggy Lynn Marchetti, 61, of Nashville, who, like her late, famous mother, Loretta Lynn, worked in the entertainment business. It has been edited for length and clarity. I was a caregiver for my mom, Loretta Lynn, after she had a stroke five years before she died in 2022 at 90. It was a challenging time, especially because I had to protect her from the press, which took a toll on my emotions. I didn't recognize myself in photos As a child, when you are walking beside a loved one toward their death, it's draining for you, too. The process exhausted me, and I had to step back and reevaluate after she passed. I'd never experienced depression, but I fell headlong into it. People would take my picture, and when I looked, I couldn't find a single one that was good or that I recognized myself in. Lynn Marchetti in the hospital before her deep-plane facelift. Courtesy of Peggy Marchetti By the spring of 2023, I was no longer OK. I needed a significant change. Coming from the entertainment industry, where people have facelifts all the time, the idea of cosmetic surgery didn't scare me at all. I started researching the procedure in both my home city, Nashville, and abroad. I always say there are two things in life you shouldn't put coupons on: a babysitter and a facelift. So I did a ton of research before choosing the right surgeon who felt right for my needs, no matter how pricey or reasonably priced they were. I booked the procedure with Dr. Fabián Mendoza, a board-qualified surgeon in Guadalajara, Mexico, long before his office calculated the cost. My deep plane facelift cost around $20,000 I was impressed not only by his results but also by my ability to contact his previous patients through a group where they shared before-and-after photos. When I finally got around to analyzing the price, the deep-plane facelift, including a two-week stay in a post-operative care home and follow-ups back in the US, cost around $20,000. Lynn Marchetti in Mexico. Courtesy of Peggy Lynn Marchetti My identical twin, Patsy, had undergone a facelift 17 months earlier in Nashville, which cost aorund $60,000. Unlike in her case, I didn't pay à la carte for each separate procedure, including a blepharoplasty. The price in Mexico was all-inclusive. I was on Dr. Mendoza's waiting list for almost 2 years, during which some of my friends and family expressed concern about my trip to Mexico. I kept saying it was up to me — and me alone. My sister accompanied me to Mexico "You've only got one face," they said. It's true, but I was in safe hands, and Gualdajara is a cosmopolitan, modern, and clean city, not some dusty town in the middle of nowhere. Patsy accompanied me to Mexico in June 2025 and was a great support throughout the procedure. It took place at a large hospital, where I stayed for 28 hours after surgery. Lynn Marchetti is pleased with the results of her surgery. Courtesy of Peggy Lynn Marchetti Next, I went to the care home where there are medical staff, translators, people who cook and clean, and others who transport you to your doctor's appointments. Sixteen days post-surgery — after a lot of shopping with Patsy — I returned to the US, chronicling my journey on my Instagram. Now I feel like my outside matches my inside much more. I've never been afraid to tell people my age, but I feel younger and like the old me. Did you travel abroad for cosmetic surgery? Please email Jane Ridley at jridley@insider.com to share your story about your experience with Business Insider. Read the original article on Business Insider

Angie Hicks Ian Tuttle/Mediakraft Angie Hicks, the face of the online marketplace Angi, says authenticity is a branding superpower. She stays true to herself in TV ads by refusing a polished persona and choosing her own outfits. Whether she's at a restaurant with family or working in the office, Hicks says she's the same person. This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Angie Hicks, cofounder of Angi, the company formerly known as Angie's List. Angi is an online home-services marketplace. This story has been edited for length and clarity. When we started Angie's List in Columbus, Ohio, in 1995, it was called Columbus Neighbors. I was the only employee, and I was the one who answered the phones and went door-to-door signing up contractors to join. If you called, you talked to me. We were about a year into the business when we realized homeowners thought the list was our monthly newsletter, which didn't include all the service providers we'd signed up. We decided to change our name to draw attention to the list and the fact that you could call us to help you find the kind of professional you needed for your home project. I say "call" because it was pre-internet days. At first, we considered The List or Jackie's List. Jackie was a woman in Columbus who knew everybody. My cofounder then threw out the idea of naming it after me. It wasn't a big decision at the time because we had only about 1,000 members and were just in one city. But then we expanded to Indianapolis and other locations. We grew city by city. The real Angie As time passed, one of the most common questions people would ask — and still do today — is whether there really is an Angie. The marketing team asked me if I'd be in the company's TV ads. It seemed like another low-stakes decision because we weren't spending that much on marketing. I didn't know where we were going creatively with this, but I knew it would be outside my comfort zone. I'm an introvert. I'm not a performer, but I said, OK, we can give it a try under one condition — that we do not build me a new persona. I am who I am, and I think that simple decision was what made the whole thing work, and it became really important. As our brand took off, I was having to live my everyday life. The Angie that people saw at the grocery store or in church needed to be the same Angie they saw on TV. That's why I would pick my own clothes, and I refused to let anyone do my hair. I would also edit the lines myself. I am very plain-spoken. If something didn't feel right, I'd say, "This doesn't sound like me." I was the client and the talent, all wrapped up in one. In the public eye Being in the public eye has been incredibly rewarding. I often get stopped by customers while I'm out shopping or at a restaurant, and they will tell me how we helped them with a home improvement project. Those connections are really special. As an introvert, there are times when you want to be invisible. But if you are the face of your business, you have to remember you're not, even when you're running to the grocery store and haven't showered. I tell myself, you're going to do what you're going to do, which goes back to that authenticity thing. If you're living one life, it makes sense that customers will see you on a Saturday morning in your sweats. People are genuinely nice, so I haven't had a scenario where it's turned negative. I've been pretty fortunate. My family is used to the attention. We'd often be out to dinner, and somebody would say something. People don't always realize why they recognize me. They'll say, 'You look so familiar. I think we went to high school together.' Be yourself everywhere A few years ago, I started holding online office hours with the professionals who list their services on Angi. I didn't realize the impact that being a celebrity would have. Some pros would come on camera, see me, and say, "I didn't know I was going to get to actually talk to you!" So it's a chance for them to connect in a very natural way, and we'll talk about anything and everything. As a public-facing leader, you have to be your authentic self. You can't have a bunch of different personas you're trying to live up to. Authenticity is not just a value. It's a leadership tool and a differentiator. It's how you act every day — when you're out and about, when you're writing a LinkedIn post, and when you're at your company town hall. That really resonates with people, and it's an important element in making human connections. Read the original article on Business Insider

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Deploying a website involves more than flipping a switch. The decisions made during setup, the configurations … A Practical Guide to Optimizing Hosting DeploymentRead more The post A Practical Guide to Optimizing Hosting Deployment appeared first on .

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The volume of cyberattacks targeting Africa declined in the past year, with weekly attacks down 22%, as attackers seemingly shifted their focus to other regions.

Financial Times: A poll of 4,000 workers in the US and the UK finds that the highest-earning and most experienced workers are adopting AI in their jobs far faster than others  —  FT-Focaldata poll offers early evidence on how the technology is reshaping work and reinforcing gender and pay gaps

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Ryan Gallagher / Bloomberg: Report: China's 360 Digital Security Group has uncovered ~1,000 previously unknown vulnerabilities, including in Microsoft's Office, using an AI-powered agent  —  A large Chinese cybersecurity firm is using artificial intelligence to identify security vulnerabilities in widely used software applications …

Alexandra Alper / Reuters: US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick says Nvidia has yet to sell H200 chips to Chinese companies and that the Chinese government has not approved such purchases  —  Nvidia's (NVDA.O) powerful H200 AI chips have not yet been sold to Chinese companies, Commerce Department Secretary Howard Lutnick …

Alastair Marsh / Bloomberg: Sources: Microsoft told carbon-removal project developers it is shelving contracts under negotiation; Microsoft has been a major backer of carbon capture tech  —  In the early days of April, a group of mid-level employees at Microsoft Corp. started making calls that would send tremors through the global market for carbon removals.

Brandon Vigliarolo / The Register: GitHub says it has begun collecting pseudonymous client-side telemetry from command-line interface (CLI) users and enabled it by default  —  Opt-out instructions included if you're not keen on GitHub watching you in the name of product improvement  —  Users of GitHub's command-line interface (CLI) who value privacy, beware.