What happens when software grades your phone calls at work?

What happened

Co-op, a big UK company that runs supermarkets, funeral homes and legal services, is using AI to record and score some workers' phone calls with customers. At Co-op Legal Services, AI models give calls about wills and estates a percentage score, the Guardian reports. A whistleblower called it "oppressive and dystopian." Co-op said it did not recognize the criticism. Separately, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed laws last week banning certain kinds of workplace surveillance.

What's actually going on

According to the Guardian, Co-op's system records calls, analyzes them and gives each one a percentage score. Tools like this generally work in two steps. First, AI turns the speech into text. Then it checks that text, and sometimes the sound of the voice, against a list of things the company wants, and turns the result into a number.

Why it matters that it's AI: a manager can only listen to a few calls. Software can go through every one without getting tired. That's what moves monitoring from spot checks to tracking everything, whether it's phone calls or a heat map (a map colored to show where people spend their time) of how workers move around.

That reach is also the weak spot. The AI counts what it was told to count. It can tell if you said the right phrases, but not always whether you actually helped. Tools that judge tone or emotion are shakier. They guess at feelings from things like pitch and speed, and people don't all sound alike when they're calm or upset. Nurses at the hospital chain Kaiser Permanente have said automated systems rated their tone of voice with patients.

California's laws aim at some of this, including heat maps that track things like bathroom time and tools that monitor workers' emotional states. The source doesn't say when the laws take effect. Co-op said its advisers were highly engaged.

In your life

If you work on the phone, in a warehouse or at a computer, it's probably safe to assume some of what you do is measured. My view: a score works best as the start of a conversation, not a verdict.

Be careful about

A score can miss context, like why a call with a grieving family ran long. And California's laws cover only certain kinds of monitoring. The source doesn't list every tool they ban.

Where to get it

There's nothing to get here. One small step: check your employee handbook, or ask HR what's recorded at work and whether it's used in reviews.