Tech giant Meta (META) has rolled out a new tool to track U.S. employees’ on-screen activity, including cursor movements, clicks, and keyboard input, according to media reports. However, the move — targeted at improving its AI model training — raises concerns about white-collar surveillance, that is, digital monitoring in a professional, office-based environment.
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Meta to Track Workers’ Clicks and Keystrokes
The revelation comes as the Menlo Park, California-based company is set to release its first-quarter 2026 results on April 29, with analysts hailing how artificial intelligence is already helping the tech major to improve user engagement and drive advertising revenue growth. Moreover, Meta continues to boost its spending on AI infrastructure, with its capital expenditure on this expected to reach $135 billion this year.
The new tool is called Model Capability Initiative (MCI) and will run on internal apps and websites to monitor employees’ activities, including occasionally taking snapshots of their computer screens. However, Meta has said sensitive data will be protected, as the goal is to train its models on real-world examples to improve the performance of AI agents in completing everyday tasks.
Meta Ramps Up AI Push as It Races Rivals
The new tool appears to be from the Superintelligence Labs, Meta’s AI-focused team that earlier this month released Muse Spark. Muse was Meta’s first major AI model since its $14.3 billion investment in Scale AI, the machine learning data lifecycle management startup founded by Alexandr Wang.
The push to capture more internal data comes as Meta races to catch up with its rivals, such as Alphabet (GOOGL), in the AI race. This is even as the tech giant’s previous AI models, including newer Llama releases, have seen a more muted reception compared to those of its competitors.
Meta is also doubling down on integrating AI into its family of apps and operations, such as content moderation. It is also reportedly looking to slash hundreds of jobs to prepare the company for the AI era — meaning that the new move could spark fears of further job cuts.
Is Meta a Good Stock to Buy?
On Wall Street, Meta’s shares continue to enjoy a Strong Buy consensus rating from analysts. This is based on 40 Buys and six Holds issued by 46 analysts over the past three months.
In addition, the average META price target of $855.60 suggests about 28% upside from current trading levels.
