<p>Tracking creep damage in structural materials is crucial for assessing their long-term integrity under sustained mechanical loads, especially in high-temperature environments. Creep deformation induces a myriad of microscopic defects, including the nucleation and growth of voids and intergranular cracks, which eventually result in catastrophic failure. This study correlates microstructural damage with acoustic emission (AE) sensing to investigate cavitation in 316L stainless steel during high-temperature creep testing. For this purpose, we leverage scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to reveal post-mortem cavity morphology, while AE sensing enables real-time detection of damage events during creep. The results of the SEM analysis show that increasing creep stress raises the void fraction and number density during steady-state creep. These findings are correlated with an increase in the AE event frequency and amplitude. The correspondence between AE parameters (amplitude and event counts) and void formation demonstrates the application of AE as a diagnostic tool for in situ monitoring of cavitation, thereby improving service-life predictions of structural components in long-term high-temperature environments.</p>