Big Four giant PwC is offering U.K. employees AI-enabled wristbands to monitor pulse, sleep and exercise patterns to help assess stress and anxiety during the coronavirus pandemic.

The professional services firm introduced the voluntary scheme in mid-May, after an earlier pilot of 50 employees last summer.

The scheme is open to all employees across the firm's U.K. divisions, including the firm's legal arm, according to a spokesperson for PwC. 

In a statement, Euan Cameron, PwC UK AI lead, said: "We're currently piloting a new scheme, led by the AI team, to see how employees are faring during this difficult time."

"Machine learning will help us identify patterns and links between factors like sleep, exercise and diary-load on overall stress levels and cognitive performance."

Cameron added that over 2,000 people at the firm have applied to be part of the scheme – although there are only 1,000 spaces available. 

The firm confirmed that all data collected will be supplemented with psychological tests and broader information about the users' workloads and schedules. The results will then be analysed by data scientists at the firm in collaboration with iHP Analytic, a performance analytics boutique.

Cameron added: "Not only will this anonymised data help us assess how people are coping with work, it will help us to see how we can then manage things better – not just now but with remote working in the future."

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