At JPMorgan Chase, America’s largest bank, executives recently launched a new “bossware” tool to monitor the reported working hours of junior bankers.
The tool, pitched to employees as a welfare check-in, compares a banker’s self-reported working hours to data from JPMorgan’s internal IT systems.
“It’s designed to support transparency, wellbeing, and encourage open conversations about workload,” the bank said in a state-ment, according to The Guardian.
Reports from the tool include estimates about a banker’s weekly digital activities, measuring calls, keystrokes and meetings scheduled. This comes amid a broader, multi-channel push by JPMorgan to boost labor productivity post-pandemic.
JPMorgan’s CEO, Jamie Dimon, a critic of COVID-19-era remote work policies, urged his staff to return to the office full-time.
“You can’t learn working from your basement,” he told Generation Z employees, Fortune Magazine reported.
The bank’s “bossware” productivity tool is just one small slice of JPMorgan’s $18 billion annual budget for new technologies.
“A little under half of JP Morgan employees use gen AI tools every single day. People use it in tens of thousands of ways specific to their jobs,” Derek Waldron, the bank’s chief analytics officer, said in an interview with McKinsey Company.
As the first major Wall Street bank to fully integrate artificial intelligence, JPMorgan’s employees were also the first to feel its impact. In May 2025, the bank told its investors that it was replacing 10% of back-office staff with AI.
In addition to AI, productivity tech has also been embedded into JPMorgan’s new headquarters on Park Avenue.
The skyscraper, 60 stories tall, is powered by over 50,000 connected devices that support bankers throughout eight trading floors. JPMorgan is not only focused on labor productivity, however. Presented as a sustainability initiative, the bank’s energy-efficient headquarters with advanced water systems and light sensors also boosts energy productivity.
On Wall Street, where many investment banks have faced criticism for their 100-hour workweeks, JP Morgan recently capped staff hours at 80 per week.
The bank has introduced several wellness-focused initiatives.
JPMorgan offers its employees access to high-end gym facilities, on-site health screenings, counseling and even a dedicated Central Park run club known as the JPMorganChase Corporate Challenge.
Despite these wellness innovations, the bank’s “bossware” tool has drawn significant concerns about workplace surveillance. Ariel Zilber, a New York Post reporter, called JPMorgan the “Big Brother” bank in a headline, referencing George Orwell’s classic sci-fi novel “1984.”
In an interview with Zilber, psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert cautioned that, “On Wall Street, overwork is still often treated as a signal of commitment. Until that changes, tools like this risk treating the symptom, not the cause.”
In the hands of employers, productivity tech, whether used for workload analysis or to promote overwork, amplifies a bank’s existing culture. Ultimately, Dimon envisions a far different Wall Street after these advances.
“My guess is the developed world will be working three and a half days a week in 20, 30, 40 years, and have wonderful lives,” Dimon said at the America Business Forum in Miami in November 2025.
