The new laws address distinct employment contexts:
- SB 947, commonly referred to as the No Robo Bosses Act, regulates automated decision systems used in employee discipline and termination decisions;
- SB 951 adds Cal-WARN disclosure requirements when covered workforce reductions are caused in whole or in substantial part by AI or another automated technology; and
- AB 1883 restricts certain AI-enabled workplace surveillance involving emotion recognition and neural data.
The new laws add to an already developing California framework governing workplace AI, including California Civil Rights Department regulations and California Privacy Protection Agency regulations.
California also joins a growing number of jurisdictions—including Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, and New York City—that regulate the use of AI or automated technologies in employment decision-making.
SB 947: Human Oversight of AI-Assisted Discipline and Termination
SB 947 becomes operative July 1, 2027 and imposes new restrictions on employers’ use of automated decision systems in employee discipline and termination decisions. The law also prohibits certain other uses of automated decision systems and establishes post-use notice, data-access, anti-retaliation, and enforcement provisions.
Covered Systems
SB 947 defines an automated decision system (ADS) as:
any computational process derived from machine learning, statistical modeling, data analytics, or artificial intelligence that issues simplified output, including a score, classification, or recommendation, that is used to assist or replace human discretionary decisionmaking and materially impacts natural persons.
The statute excludes specified technologies including spam filters, firewalls, antivirus software, identity- and access-management tools, calculators, databases, datasets, and other compilations of data.
Prohibited Uses of Automated Decision Systems
SB 947 prohibits an employer from using an ADS to:
- “Prevent compliance with or violate” applicable labor, occupational health and safety, employment, or civil rights laws or regulations;
- “Infer an employee’s protected status under Section 12940 of the Government Code”; or
- “Predict and take adverse action against a worker for exercising their legal rights,” including rights under state and federal employment and labor laws.
The law separately imposes specific restrictions on use of an ADS in disciplinary and termination decisions.
Sole Reliance Is Prohibited; Primary Use or Reliance Triggers Additional Requirements
SB 947 prohibits employers from relying “solely on an ADS when making a disciplinary or termination decision” and imposes additional obligations when an employer primarily uses or relies upon an ADS in making a disciplinary or termination decision.
Human Corroboration
If an employer “primarily relies upon an ADS output” to make a disciplinary or termination decision, the employer must “direct a human to corroborate the decision.” To do so, the human reviewer must use either data “collected or used to produce the ADS output” or “other relevant corroborating or supporting information,” which may include supervisory or managerial evaluations, personnel files, employee work product, peer reviews, and witness interviews.
If the employer “cannot corroborate the ADS output,” or the human reviewer concludes that the output is “inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading,” the employer may not use the ADS output to make the disciplinary or termination decision.
Post-Use Notice
An employer that “primarily relied upon an ADS to make a disciplinary or termination decision” must provide the affected employee with a written post-use notice “at the time the employer informs the employee of the decision.”
The notice must be in plain language, provided as a separate standalone communication, in the language used for routine employee communications, and delivered through a “simple and easy-to-use method.”
The notice must state that:
- The employer “primarily relied upon an ADS” in making the disciplinary or termination decision;
- “A human reviewed the decision and corroborated the ADS output”;
- The employee may contact an identified human for additional information regarding the decision and the employee’s data-access right; and
- Retaliation for exercising rights under the statute is prohibited.
Unlike other state laws in this space, SB 947 does not impose a general advance-notice requirement before an employer uses an ADS. Rather, the statutory notice obligation is tied to a covered disciplinary or termination decision.
Employee Data-Description Right
Where an employer has “primarily used an ADS” to make a disciplinary or termination decision, the employee may request, and the employer must provide, a “meaningful, objective description of the employee’s own data used by the ADS.”
The statute requires a description of the employee’s data rather than production of the underlying data itself. The description must anonymize personal information concerning customers, other employees, and other individuals.
Anti-Retaliation and Enforcement
SB 947 prohibits an employer from discharging, threatening to discharge, demoting, suspending, discriminating against, or retaliating against an employee for exercising or attempting to exercise rights under the statute, filing a complaint with the Labor Commissioner, alleging a violation, cooperating with an investigation or prosecution, or assisting with enforcement.
The statute does not expressly create an individual private right of action. Rather, the Labor Commissioner may investigate and enforce violations, issue citations, order specified temporary relief, and bring civil actions. Public prosecutors also may bring civil enforcement actions. An employer that violates the statute is subject to a $500 civil penalty per violation.
The statute also includes a burden-shifting provision. In specified enforcement proceedings under the discipline and termination provisions, once it is demonstrated that an ADS was used to make the covered decision, the employer bears the burden of demonstrating that it did not primarily rely upon an ADS or that it complied with the applicable requirements.
Exceptions
SB 947 does not apply to parties covered by a valid collective bargaining agreement if the agreement “explicitly waives this part in clear and unambiguous terms,” expressly provides for specified terms and conditions of work, and “provides protection from algorithmic management.”
The law also contains a limited exception for ADS use required by, or “reasonably necessary to comply with,” specified federal statutes, regulations, or binding federal contracts involving aircraft development or national-security, military, space, or defense products or services.
SB 951: Additional Cal-WARN Disclosures for AI-Related Workforce Reductions
SB 951 amends the California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (Cal-WARN) to require additional disclosures when AI or other automated technologies contribute substantially to a covered workforce reduction. The new requirements take effect January 1, 2027.
When the Additional Disclosure Requirements Apply
SB 951 does not create a separate WARN notice obligation merely because an employer uses AI or automation. Rather, the additional requirements apply when an employer is already required to provide notice of a mass layoff, relocation, or termination under Cal-WARN and that event is “caused in whole or in substantial part by an AI system or other automated technology replacing or automating employment positions.”
Accordingly, the new requirements turn on both the existing Cal-WARN coverage rules and whether AI or another automated technology was a substantial cause of the covered employment action.
SB 951 defines “artificial intelligence” as an engineered or machine-based system that varies in its level of autonomy and can, for explicit or implicit objectives, infer from the input it receives how to generate outputs that can influence physical or virtual environments.
Additional Information Required in the Cal-WARN Notice
For a covered event caused in whole or substantial part by AI or another automated technology replacing or automating employment positions, the employer’s Cal-WARN notice must additionally identify:
- The number, classification or occupation, and work location of layoffs substantially due to replacement or automation by AI or another automated technology;
- The job functions performed by the replaced workers that will be automated by AI or another automated technology;
- The specific category or type of AI system or other automated technology that substantially resulted in the technological displacement; and
- The statement “This notice is for a technology displacement” at the top of the notice.
The Employment Development Department must publish a summary of notices containing these disclosures on its website and post a quarterly statewide summary of reported technology displacements. The law also directs the department to, by January 1, 2028, report to the Legislature on AI’s effects on business hiring practices, including the impact on industries and occupations and potential recommendations for a future public-notice requirement.
Practical Implications
For employers contemplating restructurings involving automation, the key practical issue will be determining whether a covered Cal-WARN event was “caused in whole or in substantial part” by AI or another automated technology. SB 951 does not define “substantial part,” which may warrant assessing—and documenting—the role the technology played in the workforce reduction.
Employers planning covered reductions should therefore consider the technology-displacement analysis as part of the Cal-WARN process at the outset, particularly where restructuring plans involve implementation of AI, automation of job functions, or elimination of positions following deployment of new technology.
AB 1883: Restrictions on AI-Enabled Workplace Surveillance
AB 1883, effective January 1, 2027, restricts employers’ use of workplace surveillance tools that use AI for certain purposes. The law applies broadly to private and public employers, including state and local governmental entities and specified labor contractors.
Covered Workplace Surveillance Tools
AB 1883 broadly defines a “workplace surveillance tool” as a system, application, instrument, or device that collects or facilitates the collection of employee data, activities, communications, actions, biometrics, or behaviors by means other than direct human observation.
The definition includes, among other things, video or audio surveillance, continuous incremental time-tracking tools, geolocation, electromagnetic tracking, and certain photoelectronic and photo-optical systems.
Prohibited Uses
An employer may not use a workplace surveillance tool that uses AI on employees for either of the purposes of “recognizing, or making inferences or predictions about, an individual’s emotional state” or “collecting neural data.”
The statute defines “neural data” as information generated by measuring activity of an employee’s central or peripheral nervous system that is not inferred from nonneural information.
Enforcement
The Labor Commissioner and public prosecutors may enforce AB 1883. Violations may result in penalties of up to $500 per violation, and the statute also provides for recovery of statutory or civil penalties by an employee, the Labor Commissioner, or a public prosecutor, but not both for the same violation.
The law also contains a limited federal-compliance exception for certain aviation, national security, military, space, and defense-related uses.
Open Questions
Employers should examine not only whether a tool collects employee information but also whether AI is being used to recognize or make inferences or predictions about emotional state or collect neural data.
Governor Newsom noted in his signing message that the legislation contains ambiguities that may warrant further legislative clarification.
Related Workplace Surveillance Law: AB 1331
Governor Newsom also signed AB 1331, a related workplace-surveillance measure that is not principally an AI law but deserves mention. AB 1331 generally prohibits an employer, absent a court order, from using a workplace surveillance tool “to monitor or surveil employees in a bathroom located in the workplace.”
It also gives employees a right to leave workplace surveillance tools behind when entering a workplace bathroom, subject to specified exceptions.
The law contains exceptions for certain identification, safety, and access-control tools, but those tools must not detect or record audio or video and must not have physically embedded or attached AI.
PRACTICAL CONSIDERATIONS FOR EMPLOYERS
Employers should consider using this period before these laws take effect or become operative to perform the following actions:
- Inventory AI and automated tools used in employment-related decisions, including general-purpose tools used by managers outside formal HR systems
- Review discipline and termination workflows for potential use of an ADS and establish human-review and documentation protocols
- Update Cal-WARN processes to identify when AI or automation contributes substantially to a covered workforce reduction
- Review workplace surveillance tools for prohibited AI-related emotion-recognition or neural-data functionality
- Coordinate compliance with California’s CRD and CCPA/ADMT requirements and applicable laws in other jurisdictions
- Review vendor contracts and system documentation to ensure sufficient visibility into how covered tools operate and what data they use
