California Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed three laws regulating workplace uses of artificial intelligence, establishing human oversight requirements for certain disciplinary decisions, restricting monitoring of employees’ emotions and neural activity, and expanding disclosures for layoffs driven by automation. The measures take effect in stages during 2027.
The laws address distinct uses of technology rather than imposing a general ban on workplace AI. SB 947 governs automated systems used in employee discipline and termination, AB 1883 limits particular forms of AI-powered surveillance, and SB 951 requires additional information in existing layoff notices when automation is a substantial cause of job losses.
SB 947, known as the No Robo Bosses Act of 2026, takes effect July 1, 2027. It requires human verification and oversight of automated decision systems used for discipline or termination, along with disclosure of their use. A central trigger for its requirements is an employer’s primary reliance on a system’s output to make those decisions.
The measure also bars employers from using automated decision systems to infer an employee’s legally protected status. It prohibits using those systems to predict an employee’s exercise of legal rights and take adverse action against the employee on that basis.
The enacted law is narrower than the similarly named proposal Newsom vetoed in 2025. That earlier version would have reached a wider range of employment decisions, including hiring, performance evaluations, promotions and assignments. It also would have covered independent contractors alongside employees and generally required notices before systems were used, rather than afterward.
AB 1883 takes effect January 1, 2027. It prohibits employers from using AI-powered workplace surveillance to identify, infer or predict an individual’s emotional state, or to collect neural data obtained by measuring activity in an employee’s nervous system.
The surveillance measure reaches beyond cameras and microphones. Its definition covers tools that collect employee information without direct human observation, including systems for tracking time, location, communications, biometrics and behavior. The law applies to private employers as well as government entities, cities and University of California campuses.
There are exceptions to the restrictions. AB 1883 preserves the use of workplace surveillance tools for safety purposes, making the scope of that provision important when assessing a particular system. Both AB 1883 and SB 947 also contain exceptions related to developing products or services for national security, military, space or defense purposes.
The third law, SB 951, also takes effect January 1, 2027. It adds disclosures to notices already required under California’s Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act when a covered mass layoff, relocation or termination results wholly or substantially from AI or other automated technology replacing or automating positions.
Those notices must specify how many employees are affected, their occupations and work locations, the functions being automated and the type of technology involved. They must also carry a statement at the top identifying the action as technology displacement. California’s Employment Development Department will publish summaries of the notices.
Sources: Law and the Workplace, Safety+Health Magazine, National Law Review – AI