Beware: Your AI note-taker could be your former employee’s star witness

Artificial intelligence (AI) has quickly found a home in the workplace, and your newest “employee” may already have a seat at the conference table. An AI note-taker can transcribe conversations, help draft emails, summarize discussions, outline documents, generate action items, and spare everyone from taking notes. For many employers, this eager new assistant has become a routine participant in the workday and in virtual meetings.

But before you invite your AI note-taker to every meeting on the calendar, remember that this “employee” may need much closer supervision than you think. When the agenda includes hiring, discipline, performance concerns, workplace investigations, reductions in force, or other personnel decisions, the AI note-taker can turn a conversation you intended to be private into discoverable evidence that supports an employee’s legal claim. And if you bring this digital assistant into a meeting with your attorney, it may put the “privilege” in attorney-client privilege at risk.

Employee left, but the AI note-taker did not

According to allegations in a recently filed New Jersey lawsuit, an employer’s AI note-taker stayed on the job after the employee left the meeting—and then sent her what it heard.