There’s been a great deal of discussion lately about the potential for technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning and others to reveal deeper insights into workforces. In much the same way as these tools are being applied to study markets and consumer buying behaviours, they’re now being considered and applied in a small number of cases to better understand workers. How they’re feeling, and of course inevitably what they’re doing. It makes sense that HR seems to be getting onboard, using technologies like AI for speeding up onboarding of new recruits to charting staff career trajectories, sifting through resumes and even trying to assess staff mental health and morale, and pre-empting staff departures. Naturally, senior executives are interested to better understand how staff are performing and what might be done to help them be better. This inevitably means developing solutions for knowing what they’re thinking and their movements. In this episode of The CIO Show we ask: “Where’s the line between what could be done and what should be done when it comes to deploying technology to analyse staff at work?” We hear from Nicki Doble, group chief information officer at Cover-More; Robert Hillard, consulting leader at Deloitte Asia-Pacific; and Jim Stanford, honorary professor of political economy at the University of Sydney and director of The Centre for Future Work at The Australia Institute.