Walmart is among several large employers, including Meta, Oracle and Amazon, that have announced workforce reductions in 2026.

Workers in several sectors have already won contracts that constrain how monitoring data can be used for attendance, performance evaluation, discipline or interference with protected activity, according to the UC Berkeley Labor Center's inventory of union contracts.

A landmark case was decided this week, when a jury found that Instagram and YouTube were designed for addiction and failed to warn users about known risks.

More than 30% of employees say their mental or physical health has been negatively affected by financial stress, a figure that climbs above 50% among those with the highest stress levels.

For HR leaders, the most prudent response is to assume that AI in the workplace will be judged by the highest standard, and to build an internal governance regime that meets it.

"The question is no longer whether mental health support exists," says Jennifer Schulz, CEO of Lyra Health. "It's whether it intervenes early and effectively enough to truly improve lives."

EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas sent a letter Feb. 26 directly to the CEOs, general counsels and board chairs of the 500 largest U.S. companies, reminding them of their obligations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Leaders want AI to enable a more fluid operating model, one where expertise moves to the work rather than staying locked in a function, where outcomes drive design rather than org chart lines and where learning is embedded in operations rather than offloaded to a training calendar.