Insightful’s Activity Verification Is Here—Why Fake Work Just Met Its Match

In this article, we’re going to discuss:

• Why simulated work is eroding trust in remote productivity and driving return-to-office decisions.
• How mouse jigglers and automation tools are quietly undermining performance reviews and people policies.
• What leading teams are doing to shift from guesswork to verified input without micromanaging.
• How Insightful’s remote employee tracking software uses behavioral detection to protect flexibility with proof.

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Mouse jigglers, keyboard simulators, and other forms of “fake work” have become a growing threat to remote work trust. With over 90,000 monthly Google searches and thousands of plug-and-play devices sold online, simulating productivity is now just a few clicks away.

For employers, that creates a troubling question: how do you tell who’s genuinely working—and who’s just appearing to?

Insightful’s new Activity Verification feature answers that question with precision. Built to detect simulated keyboard and mouse activity with up to 99% accuracy, it gives leaders the ability to validate real work in real time, without surveillance or second-guessing.

We’ll break down what’s changed, why it matters, and how this remote employee monitoring software helps teams build the trust they need to keep remote work working.
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Why Simulated Work Is Threatening Remote Flexibility

Remote work is still widely preferred by employees, but its foundation is under pressure. The rise of simulated activity has created a visibility gap for employers, who are being asked to support flexible work without knowing for certain if the work is real.

What was once fringe behavior—using mouse jigglers or auto-clickers to keep an online status active—has become mainstream. Employees can now choose from thousands of affordable devices or browser-based tools designed to mimic productivity without lifting a finger. And in some cases, they do.

This has real consequences:

• In June 2024, Wells Fargo fired more than a dozen employees for using simulation tools to fake activity, citing misconduct and violation of company policy.
  
  
• Data from Teramind, analyzing over 1 million users across 5,000 businesses, revealed that more than 8% of users appeared to be simulating work through non-human input behaviors.
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For managers, it means spending more time validating output than coaching performance. For HR, it creates doubt around performance reviews and promotion decisions. And for executives, it drives the return of a question many hoped was resolved in 2021: should we bring people back to the office just to prove they’re working?

That’s exactly the gap Insightful set out to close.

“As work-simulating tools proliferate, trust in remote work erodes,” said Insightful.io CEO Ivan Petrovic.

“Our new Activity Verification feature restores confidence in remote work, so managers spend less time doubting outputs and more time supporting their teams.

We know how much employees value remote work. To be able to continue offering it, employers need proof that real work is happening. Activity Verification – along with our entire suite of remote work tools – gives employers this certainty, enabling remote work to continue.

Ultimately, it’s a win-win. Employers become more confident in remote work and employees get to continue to enjoy the flexibility of remote work.”

This isn't just a feature launch—it’s a new answer to one of the biggest cultural and operational dilemmas in today’s workforce.
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What’s Changed (and Who’s Affected)

The problem isn’t that mouse jigglers exist—it’s that most systems can’t tell the difference. Basic activity tracking software will show input, movement, and uptime. But it can’t distinguish between real work and synthetic input (until now).

This ambiguity creates pain points across key functions:

• For Workforce Ops and IT, surface-level metrics like keyboard activity or app usage are now unreliable. A user can game the system with simple software or hardware that fakes engagement.
  
  
• For HR and People Teams, the downstream effects are harder to quantify but just as serious. Promotions, bonuses, and recognition are increasingly based on partial data. Without better context, performance conversations risk becoming unfair or adversarial.
  
  
• For Executives, the stakes are strategic. When productivity visibility breaks down, the default response becomes blunt: reinstitute office mandates, mandate screen-sharing, or cut flexibility across the board, hurting morale, retention, and even output from those who are performing.

Simulated activity harms trust, wastes time, clouds judgment, and forces reactive decision-making. The more it spreads, the harder it becomes to protect the flexible work policies employees value most.
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What Teams Must Do Next

This is not just an IT issue or a people policy concern—it’s an all-of-organization moment. And solving it doesn’t mean adding more monitoring. It means shifting from passive tracking to active verification.

Here’s how different teams can respond strategically:

• IT & Security should audit their environments for known input simulators, both software- and hardware-based. Simulation patterns—like hyper-regular intervals or device spoofing—must be detectable at the system level. That requires tools purpose-built for behavioral input validation, not just presence detection.
  
  
• Ops and Workforce Managers should move away from interpreting activity time as productivity. Instead, they should rely on tools that flag anomalies, detect patterns, and surface only what matters—so they can spend more time coaching, less time cross-checking.
  
  
• HR and People Leaders should lean into transparency, framing verification as a fairness mechanism. It protects top performers from being dragged down by a few outliers and gives people the chance to demonstrate their work with confidence, not anxiety.
  
  
• Executives and Policy Makers need verified data to make meaningful remote work decisions. “Trust but verify” isn’t just a cliché here—it’s the only sustainable way to balance flexibility with accountability.
  
  

In short: don’t escalate monitoring. Upgrade insight.

How Verified Clarity Starts with Insightful’s Activity Detection

Insightful (formerly Workpuls) developed Activity Verification to do exactly what traditional tools can’t: verify that input is real.

Unlike basic tracking tools that simply record input, Activity Verification is designed to flag suspicious behaviors that may indicate the use of automation tools or input-simulating devices.

While traditional systems log activity as-is, Insightful provides an additional layer of analysis, giving leaders more certainty about whether work is genuinely happening.

When irregular patterns are detected, the system flags them discreetly for review. Managers don’t need to monitor every move; they can focus only on anomalies that may require attention.

The result is a real-time system that can detect and flag simulated activity with 99% accuracy. Importantly, it doesn’t track everything—it only escalates when something doesn’t look right.

The goal is not surveillance—it’s verified trust. By distinguishing between legitimate activity and possible simulation, Activity Verification helps protect flexibility for employees who’ve earned it, while giving companies the assurance they need to support remote work at scale.

Activity Verification is fully embedded into Insightful’s remote work platform, which includes remote work time tracking, productivity insights, workload visibility, and project-level reporting. Together, these tools help teams move beyond assumptions and toward accountability grounded in facts.
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From Uncertainty to Proof: A Clear Path to Protecting Remote Work

Remote work shouldn’t be fragile. But without visibility, even strong remote cultures can break under the weight of doubt, exceptions, and quiet policy shifts.

Activity Verification gives teams the clarity they need to preserve what’s working—and fix what’s not.

✅ Verify real input activity instead of relying on appearances

✅ Coach confidently and fairly, with behavior-backed insights

✅ Defend flexible work policies with data, not gut checks

Start a 7-day free trial or book a demo to see Insightful in action.

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