Your boss might be using AI to write your performance review

Date:
Thu, 01 Oct 2026 13:12:54 +0000

Description:
Manager are turning to AI for dealing with awkward conversations and performance reviews.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter If you work in an office youll know were deep into performance review season. But how would you feel if you found out that your boss had used AI to write your yearly appraisal? I know
Id be pretty annoyed to learn that AI was deciding whether I was worthy of a raise this year.

AI use by employees is becoming commonplace, but it's also being adopted by managers. A recent survey by Headway of 1,000 managers found that 33% had
used AI to write feedback or prepare a performance review, while 31% had turned to AI to resolve team conflicts. A further 27% had used AI to help write uncomfortable conversations they needed to have.

That may sound like a lot, but the figure is actually down a bit from 41% admitting they have used AI to draft or revise a performance review in a similar survey from a year ago, but still high. Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here: Your annual performance review: "Please take a
seat..." (Image credit: Shutterstock / PeopleImages) The ease AI For
managers, the appeal of using AI is easy to understand. Faced with having to write several performance reviews each year it can be a real timesaver to
dump the work onto AI, however the risk is that what should be very personal performance feedback is being outsourced to a bot.

Managers' AI use is not stopping at performance reviews, either. The survey also found that 57% of managers have already scripted or rehearsed a
difficult conversation before having it using AI. You may like A third of workers believe having an AI boss would make them more productive Nearly a third of AI users are hiding it from their employers Almost all workers want their employers to legally have to disclose AI monitoring

Thalia-Maria Tourikis, a qualified health coach and burnout prevention and recovery expert at Headway, commented:

When encountered with a difficult conversation, one might think that using AI can help organize their thoughts. However, you should not give up that interaction to automation. When human emotions such as trust and empathy are involved, it is best conveyed when written by a person. The perfection of AI reads as superficial and doesnt have the same impact. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox Sign up for breaking news, reviews, opinion, top tech deals, and more. Contact me with news and offers from other Future brands Receive email from us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. A sliding scale Bosses using AI
to help rate employee performance isnt the only threat from AI that workers face, theres also the threat of being monitored by AI. Owl Labs' State of Hybrid Work survey spoke to 8,000 workers worldwide, which found that 58% of employees believe their employer has deployed AI-based monitoring tools.

The Headway survey doesnt make it clear whether managers are using AI to simply improving their grammar, or change the occasional word for something better, or wether their actually generating the text of the performance
review entirely using AI. Theres a big difference between these two extremes and one involves much more cause for concern than the other.

Its especially concerning with performance reviews because these are often link to financial compensation. If your performance review makes a difference to your annual salary, and wether you deserve that raise or not, then finding out that its really AI deciding your future rather than your human manager would be especially galling. Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to get our expert news, reviews, and opinion in your feeds.



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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/your-boss-might-be-using-ai- to-write-your-performance-review-and-some-companies-could-be-letting-it-help-d ecide-who-gets-promoted


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