Newsom signs California workplace AI laws covering surveillance and firing decisions

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed workplace AI legislation on Sept. 30, 2026, limiting certain employee surveillance and automated disciplinary decisions across the state. One measure restricts AI tools that assess workers’ emotions or collect neural data; another requires human involvement when an automated system drives a decision to discipline or fire an employee. The protections are scheduled to begin in 2027, giving workers and employers time before the new requirements apply.

What California’s workplace surveillance law prohibits

Under Assembly Bill 1883, an employer may not use an AI workplace surveillance tool to recognize, infer or predict an employee’s emotional state, or to collect neural data. The bill defines a workplace surveillance tool broadly. Its examples include video and audio surveillance, continuous time tracking and geolocation. The restriction concerns those specified uses of AI surveillance tools, rather than every way an employer might monitor work.

The measure’s definition of an employer extends beyond private companies. It includes state and local government entities, the University of California, California State University, school and community college districts, labor contractors and specified other contractors. That scope matters because the restriction applies to covered public workplaces as well as private ones. The enrolled text also allows surveillance tools used for safety when they do not perform the prohibited functions.

AB 1883 provides a limited exception for specified aircraft, national security, military, space and defense operations when a surveillance tool is reasonably necessary to comply with a federal law, regulation or binding federal contract. It authorizes enforcement by California’s Labor Commissioner or a public prosecutor, with a penalty of up to $500 for each violation. Those qualifications are part of the bill’s text and limit how broadly its prohibition can be described.

How the law addresses AI-driven discipline and firing

The bill’s definition covers computational processes that produce outputs such as scores, classifications or recommendations used to assist or replace human discretion and materially affect people. It expressly excludes tools including spam filters, firewalls, antivirus software, calculators and databases. That distinction matters: the measure targets consequential employment decisions made with automated outputs, rather than every computational tool an employer uses.

When an employer primarily relies on an automated decision system for discipline or termination, SB 947 requires written notice as the decision is communicated. The notice must identify the system’s role, the human review, a human contact and the worker’s protection against retaliation. An affected employee can also request a meaningful, objective description of their own data used in the decision. These requirements give workers information about how an automated output contributed to an employment action.

SB 947 authorizes enforcement by the Labor Commissioner and public prosecutors and sets a $500 civil penalty per violation. Its exceptions include certain operations tied to specified federal requirements and parties covered by a qualifying collective bargaining agreement that expressly waives the bill’s protections. The bill’s limits on automated decisions therefore have defined coverage and exceptions, rather than applying identically to every employer and worker.

When the workplace AI protections begin

The two measures do not share a start date. SB 947 says its workplace provisions become operative on July 1, 2027. AB 1883’s enrolled text contains no special commencement clause. Under the California Secretary of State’s stated general rule for regular-session statutes, that puts AB 1883’s effective date at Jan. 1, 2027. Neither set of workplace requirements should be read as already operating on the day Newsom signed the bills.

Why California adopted the measures

The Associated Press reported that the signing was aimed at risks to workers involving AI, including potential job losses and workplace surveillance. Newsom said, ‘AI should expand opportunity — not come at the expense of workers and families.’ The governor’s office characterized the package as adding human review of automated employment actions and notice when AI causes specified employment disruptions. That is the administration’s account of the package, not a finding about its eventual effects.

Bloomberg Law reported that SB 947 revises the No Robo Bosses Act, which Newsom vetoed in 2025. The new signing therefore follows an earlier attempt to regulate automated workplace decisions. AP also reported that Newsom criticized the absence of comprehensive federal AI regulation and left open the possibility of a special legislative session. How often the new California rules will be invoked, and how enforcement will work in practice, remains to be seen after their respective start dates.