Tech executives bet big on AI. Their workers are being tasked with proving they were right.

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First came efficiency. Then came intensity. Now it's accountability.

A new year means a new mantra for Silicon Valley, and this time it's all about showing your work, writes BI's Tim Paradis.

From Amazon helping managers track employees' time spent in the office to Meta keeping tabs on workers' AI usage, tech's corporate overlords are no longer going to take your word for it.

There's a not-so-subtle reason for this sudden interest in documentation. You might have heard me say this before, but companies are investing lots into AI, and the benefits aren't entirely clear. (JPMorgan's Jamie Dimon literally told analysts to just "trust me.")

So with investors breathing down execs' necks about their tech budgets, they're now looking for the humans to give them something to show for it. Add this to the growing list of ways AI ends up creating more work for employees.

This isn't just a Big Tech phenomenon. Citi CEO Jane Fraser, who is in the midst of her own "Transformation," told workers in a recent memo that old habits won't fly anymore and everyone needs to step up their game.

There's a slightly less cynical way to look at this whole thing, one expert told Tim. Collecting all this data will help bosses better justify their workers' existence. (I only said it was slightly less cynical.)

It reminds me of an old coach I had. He'd tell us you shouldn't worry about getting yelled at. You should only panic when he stops yelling at you. That means he thinks you're a lost cause.

That might be true, but it sure didn't make wind sprints after practice easier.

Metrics aren't a complete disaster for workers, but they could pose a risk to innovation.

A clear sense of what your company expects from you can be beneficial, especially when you're looking for a raise. You asked me to produce X. I delivered X+1. Time to pay up. (Results may vary on that pitch.)

Guidelines can be limiting though. Let's say you crack the code on hitting your assigned number. Are you willing to deviate from that strategy? Is the risk of not hitting your number worth the reward of trying something new?

Creativity is rarely born from repetition. You often need to understand what doesn't work to figure out what will work. But if you're constantly being asked to show your worth, putting up a bunch of Ls, even if a W is around the corner, is a dangerous game.

Besides, the executives are already taking enough risks for all of us.