Workers’ fears about losing their jobs to artificial intelligence bots have led to a surge in union membership at the country’s two highest-profile technology companies, Canva and Atlassian.

Since December, more than 100 employees of the companies have signed up for Professionals Australia, the union that represents the bulk of the local technology industry. This is a fraction of the tens of thousands of people Canva and Atlassian employ, but it reflects growing fissures between technology bosses and their employees over AI deployment.