Emotion AI in Workplace Environments: A Case Study

TL;DR

This case study explores employees' perceptions of Emotion AI in the workplace, highlighting benefits for wellbeing, concerns about privacy, and the importance of transparency and policies to mitigate issues.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into employee attitudes towards Emotion AI in a real organizational setting, emphasizing the role of organizational policies and communication.

Findings

Employees view wellbeing monitoring positively when benefits are clear

Concerns persist even with familiarity and transparency about the technology

Robust policies and open communication can mitigate employee concerns

Abstract

Emotion AI is an emerging field of artificial intelligence intended to be utilized by organizations to manage and monitor employees emotional states supporting employee wellbeing and organizational goals. The current paper presents a case study that took place in a Finnish research institute in which 11 research participants were interviewed about their experiences of working in an Emotion AI environment. Our findings indicate that employees have a positive predisposition towards wellbeing monitoring in the workplace when benefits are perceived firsthand. Concerns however, manifest even in settings where there is existing familiarity with the technology how it operates and who is conducting the data collection, these are discussed in the findings. We additionally note that employee concerns can be mitigated via robust organizational policies transparency and open communication.