California Governor Gavin Newsom has signed three new workplace laws targeting the growing use of artificial intelligence and automated technology to monitor workers, make disciplinary decisions, and replace jobs.
The measures expand protections for California employees as businesses increasingly start to bring AI into workplace management.
Together, SB 947, AB 1883, and SB 951 place limits on automated firing, restrict certain forms of AI-powered surveillance, and require employers to disclose when automation is behind large-scale job losses.
The measures also put California alongside a growing number of jurisdictions, including Colorado, Illinois, Maine and New York City, that have introduced protections governing automated employment decisions or electronic monitoring.
However, the states have taken markedly different approaches.
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Human Review Before AI-Driven Firings
SB 947, which was authored by state Senator Jerry McNerney and takes effect on July 1, 2027, tackles one of the most controversial uses of AI in the workplace: deciding whether somebody should be disciplined or fired.
The law prohibits an employer from relying solely on an Automated Decision System (ADS) when making a disciplinary or termination decision.
The new law states that when an employer relies primarily on an ADS to make this type of decision, a human must check the underlying information, which might include peer reviews, witness interviews, personnel files, and other evidence, to make sure the AI recommendation is justified.
Workers must also receive written notice when an ADS was primarily used in the decision process, and they can request a description of the data that was used by the system to make the decision.
For employees, the practical benefit is that software can’t be the sole decision-maker that costs them their job. Where an automated system plays the primary role, there must be meaningful human scrutiny rather than simply a manager approving the computer's recommendation.
Limits on AI Workplace Surveillance
AB 1883, authored by Assemblymember Isaac Bryan, addresses a different concern: employers using sophisticated AI systems to monitor their employees.
The new law restricts employers from using AI-powered surveillance tools to analyze workers and determine how they feel or predict their emotions. It also restricts AI workplace surveillance tools from collecting data about workers’ brain or nervous-system activity.
Employers that violate the law can face enforcement action and civil penalties of $500 for each violation.
New Disclosures When Automation Leads to Layoffs
SB 951, authored by state Senator Eloise Gómez Reyes, approaches workplace automation from another direction: what happens when technology eliminates jobs.
The law amends California's Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification requirements.
Beginning January 1, 2028, when a mass layoff, relocation, or termination happens "in whole or in substantial part" because of AI or other automated technology, replacing or automating positions, employers must provide additional information in their Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) notices, which employers must provide ahead of certain mass layoffs, closures, or relocations.
That information includes the number of layoffs substantially attributable to automation, the occupations and locations affected, the job functions being automated, and the category or type of technology involved. The notice must also identify the event as a "technology displacement."
The change doesn’t create an across-the-board ban on replacing workers with AI. Instead, its purpose is to make the role technology played in qualifying layoffs more transparent.
How Other States Compare
California isn’t acting entirely alone in trying to control AI use in the workplace and protect employees.
Colorado has established one of the country's broadest state frameworks for automated decision-making. Under a Colorado law signed in 2026, starting January 1, 2027, companies using AI or other automated technology to influence employment decisions must provide notices about its use, while workers affected by a negative decision can request access to their personal data and ask for human review.
Illinois has taken a narrower approach focused on recruitment. Its Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act requires employers using AI to analyze video interviews to tell applicants how the technology will be used, explain what it evaluates, and get their consent beforehand.
Applicants can also request that their interview videos be deleted.
New York City (rather than the whole of New York State) has a prominent rule governing automated hiring technology. Local Law 144 allows employers and employment agencies to use Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDTs), but only if they’ve been audited for bias within the past year, details of the audit are publicly available, and affected candidates or employees are notified.
California's three measures, therefore, address several stages of the employment relationship at once: surveillance while someone is working, automated decisions about discipline or dismissal, and disclosure when technology contributes to wider job cuts. While other jurisdictions have imposed pieces of that framework, California's latest laws extend protections across multiple ways in which AI can affect workers.
Newsweek has contacted the California Federation of Labor Unions for comment.
Newsweek’s reporters and editors used Martyn, our AI assistant, to produce this story. Learn more about Martyn here.
Contact Newsweek editor on this story: Edward Pearcey.