California governor Gavin Newsom has signed a number of new laws that will ban employers from using AI to decide whether to fire workers, using it to predict employees’ emotional states or collecting neural data.
It also asks companies to notify workers if layoffs were caused by AI and prohibits AI surveillance in workplace bathrooms.
The governor signed SB 947 alongside SB 951, AB 1331 and AB 1883, which address automated employment decisions, technology-linked layoffs and workplace surveillance.
Beginning July 1, 2027, SB 947 bars employers from relying solely on an automated decision system (ADS) for a disciplinary or termination decision.
If an employer primarily relies on ADS output, a human must corroborate the decision using data collected or used to produce the output, or other relevant supporting information. If the output cannot be corroborated, or the reviewer finds it inaccurate, incomplete or misleading, the employer cannot use it for that decision.
When an employer primarily relies on an ADS, it must provide written notice when informing the employee of the disciplinary or termination decision. The employee can also request a meaningful, objective description of their own data used by the system. The Labor Commissioner and public prosecutors can enforce the law, with a $500 civil penalty per violation.
Human review does not extend to hiring
The ADS, subject to specified exclusions, covers computational processes derived from machine learning, statistical modeling, data analytics or AI that produce a score, classification or recommendation used to assist or replace human discretionary decision-making and materially affect people. The human-review and notice requirements apply to discipline and termination, not hiring.
AI-linked layoffs get added disclosure
SB 951 amends California’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (Cal-WARN), which requires covered employers to give advance notice of mass layoffs, relocations and closures.
Starting Jan. 1, 2027, an employer already required to issue Cal-WARN notice must add technology-displacement disclosures when a mass layoff, relocation or termination is caused in whole or in substantial part by AI or other automated technology replacing or automating jobs.
The notice must state at the top, “This notice is for a technology displacement,” and identify the affected jobs and locations, the functions being automated and the category or type of technology involved. The Employment Development Department must publish summaries of the notices and quarterly statewide summaries of reported technology displacement.
For a mass layoff, Cal-WARN covers 50 or more employees in a 30-day period at an establishment that employs, or employed in the preceding 12 months, at least 75 people.SB 951 adds disclosure to the existing notice requirement; it does not make every AI-related job cut a Cal-WARN event.
Two related workplace surveillance laws take effect Jan. 1, 2027. AB 1883 prohibits employers from using AI-powered workplace surveillance tools to recognize, infer or predict an employee’s emotional state or collect neural data, subject to specified exceptions. AB 1331 bars employers from monitoring or surveilling employees in workplace bathrooms, subject to limited exceptions.