Meta has confirmed it will install tracking software on its employees' computers to capture every keystroke and mouse movement, using the data to train artificial intelligence models that the company hopes will eventually automate workers' tasks.
Model Capability Initiative
According to Reuters, Meta announced the programme, known as the Model Capability Initiative (MC), in an internal memo to its US-based staff. The note informed employees that software would run across each device, logging digital behaviour in real time, along with occasional screenshots.
A Meta spokesperson stated: "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." The data, they claim, would not be used for staff performance assessments.
However, an anonymous employee told the BBC the move was "very dystopian," citing the harvesting of every move to train AI while bracing for sweeping job cuts. Another former employee described the tool as "just the latest way they're shoving AI down everyone's throat."
Job Cuts Loom
Meta recently confirmed it will cut roughly 10 per cent of its global workforce – close to 8,000 staff – in a redundancy wave starting 20 May. Further reductions are expected later in the year. The company's job listings page, which once advertised 800 roles in March, now lists just seven.
Meta's chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, said: "The vision we are building towards is one where our agents primarily do the work and our role is to direct, review and help them improve." The initiative is internally called the 'agent transformation accelerator.'
CEO Mark Zuckerberg has pledged to invest roughly $140bn (£103bn) in AI this year, nearly doubling last year's outlay. He recently announced that 2026 will "be the year that AI dramatically changes the way we work." In January, he told employees: "We're starting to see projects that used to take big teams now be accomplished by a single, very talented person."
Legal and Privacy Concerns
According to Ifeoma Ajunwa, a law professor at Yale, the move subjects white-collar employees to surveillance levels historically associated with delivery drivers and gig workers. In the US, federal law imposes no meaningful ceiling on such monitoring if employees are informed. However, in Europe, the programme would likely violate GDPR. In Germany, keystroke logging has only been allowed in cases involving serious criminal offences.
Meta said safeguards are in place to protect sensitive content but declined to specify excluded data types. The announcement adds to a broader pattern of tech layoffs, with Amazon cutting 30,000 roles recently and Block shedding half its staff in February.
