It should be an inalienable right to message your co-worker the eye roll emoji whenever your other co-worker does something cringe on Zoom. It is the glue that binds.

However, several employers are now using an AI-powered app to analyze and monitor messages across Slack, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and other platforms.

What spy is this?

It’s called Aware, an Ohio-based startup that launched in 2017, per CNBC, and its clients include Nestle, Walmart, Delta Air Lines, and Starbucks.

It uses AI, trained on previous employee interactions, to analyze messages and determine:

• How various groups of employees feel about the company or decisions it makes.
• If bullying or discrimination is happening.
• If employees are sharing confidential info.
• If employees are sending inappropriate texts, photos, or videos.
• How often teams communicate with one another.

In theory, this makes it easier for employers to stay on top of employee sentiment and potential risks in an increasingly online world.

Aware CEO Jeff Schumann told TechCrunch that a company with 10k employees might send ~180m messages per year, while larger ones can hit 1B+ — 300%-1k% more than before the pandemic.

But…

… privacy experts worry that even though such tools exist for email communication, tools like Aware could be pretty scary.

Aware lets companies decide what risks and phrases to flag — e.g., violence, harassment, insider trading, etc. — but uses anonymized data and supposedly can’t tell an employer which employee is doing what. But another tool called eDiscovery can flag messages for certain risks, then identify a specific employee.

One expert worries this could become tantamount to tracking thought crimes, while others expressed concern about employees’ ability to defend themselves.

Schumann said all pertinent info and decision-making is ultimately left in the hands of human beings, but, uh, maybe watch what you type to your co-workers from now on.

Fun fact: Schumann’s earlier company was called BigBrotherLite.com, geared toward mobile viewers of the reality show “Big Brother,” and named after the always-watching leader of the totalitarian government in George Orwell’s 1984. Aware was previously called Feedcop, then Wiretap. C’mon.

Even reading the word “bedbugs” is enough to make you itchy.

And finding the little creatures in your hotel sheets — like what happened last fall in Paris — is a real-life nightmare that’s becoming more common.

Luckily, it’s AI to the rescue. Spotta, a UK-based company founded in 2017, is developing tech to spot bedbugs on hotel mattresses and put a stop to outbreaks, per Hotel Dive.

While bedbugs might be teeny-tiny, the potential profits are not:

• One study found that a single review mentioning bedbugs can slash the value of a hotel’s rooms by $23-$38 per night.
• Insect pests cost the global economy $570B annually by spreading disease, killing crops, and marring businesses’ reputations.

The startup, which raised $3.7m+ in December, works with hotels throughout Europe and recently partnered with Comcast’s MachineQ to bring its tech to more US hotels.

Tech bites back

Spotta’s bedbug detection system is the size of a deck of cards and is installed under hotel mattresses. An image sensor in the device uses AI to identify any bugs and alerts hotel management with an email and a photo if it spots a bedbug.

• Timely detection is key — once you can see the little suckers with your eyeballs, it’s likely too late to contain an outbreak.
• Using AI to debug also limits the use of harmful pesticides, which has long been the only solution.

The tech could even be useful outside of the hotel room; being able to identify and control pests in restaurants and bars might be next.

More proof that AI is capable of seemingly anything — and that if you read the word “bedbug” enough times, you’ll be convinced they’re in your house.