All About Cookies is an independent, advertising-supported website. Some of the offers that appear on this site are from third-party advertisers from which All About Cookies receives compensation. This compensation may impact how and where products appear on this site (including, for example, the order in which they appear).
All About Cookies does not include all financial or credit offers that might be available to consumers nor do we include all companies or all available products. Information is accurate as of the publishing date and has not been provided or endorsed by the advertiser.
The All About Cookies editorial team strives to provide accurate, in-depth information and reviews to help you, our reader, make online privacy decisions with confidence. Here's what you can expect from us:
Employers can use AI to track how workers perform their jobs, communicate with colleagues, and even move around the workplace. Some systems can analyze conversations for a worker's tone or emotional state, while other workplace surveillance tools can track physical activity.
The stakes get higher when AI influences decisions about someone's livelihood, including discipline, firing, and layoffs.
California is now drawing some new lines. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed four laws on September 30 that restrict how employers can use automated systems to make decisions about workers and how far workplace surveillance can go.[1]
California has passed four laws to limit how employers use AI in the workplace. Governor Gavin Newsom signed all four on September 30, 2026, describing them as new protections against the effects of AI, automated technology, and workplace surveillance.
All four laws were signed on September 30, but they don't all take effect at the same time. AB 1331, AB 1883, and SB 951 take effect January 1, 2027, while SB 947 takes effect July 1, 2027.
The first is SB 947, known as the No Robo Bosses Act, which takes effect on July 1, 2027. Under the law, an employer cannot rely solely on an automated decision-making system to fire or discipline an employee.
If an employer primarily relies on an AI or automated system to make such a decision, a human must corroborate it using relevant supporting information rather than simply rubber-stamping the system’s output.
The affected employee can also request a description of the personal data the system primarily used, and the employer must provide written notice about the system’s use. “AI must remain a tool controlled by humans, not the other way around,” said State Senator Jerry McNerney.
Then there’s SB 951, which amends California’s existing Cal-WARN law and takes effect in 2027.
Employers already have to give 60 days’ notice before certain mass layoffs, relocations, or terminations. Under the new law, when such a workforce reduction is caused in whole or substantial part by AI or other automated technology replacing or automating jobs, the notice must also include additional information.
That includes the number, occupation, and work location of affected workers, the job functions that will be automated, and the specific category or type of AI or other automated technology responsible for the displacement.
The other two laws target workplace surveillance more directly. AB 1883 restricts employers from using AI-powered workplace surveillance tools to, among other things, collect neural data or recognize an individual’s emotional state.
This matters because it limits an employer’s ability to use AI to infer a person’s emotions or nervous-system activity, which goes beyond simply asking whether an employee is at their desk or completing enough work.
Finally, AB 1331 prohibits employers from using workplace surveillance tools to monitor or surveil employees in workplace bathrooms, subject to certain exceptions. It also gives employees the right to leave surveillance devices in their possession outside the bathroom in certain circumstances.
Workplace surveillance can take many forms, but AI lets employers collect and analyze far more information about employees than traditional monitoring could.
AI-powered systems can analyze workplace communications, track employees’ movements, monitor performance, and assess behavioral patterns. Some tools can even analyze the tone or sentiment of conversations to produce insights about how employees interact with customers or colleagues.
One example is Aware, a Slack integration that uses AI and machine learning to provide insights into sentiment, toxicity, topics, and employee behavior. At Kaiser Permanente, nurses have also described AI systems that attempted to assess the empathy and tone of their voices during patient calls. The nurses said the technology could affect how their performance was evaluated, raising concerns about whether an algorithm could accurately understand the context of their conversations.
Workplace monitoring was invasive even before the current AI boom. One of the most infamous examples is Amazon, where reports showed the company tracking employees’ bathroom breaks down to the minute. Several workers said they skipped water and bathroom breaks for fear of disciplinary action.
AI can take that kind of workplace monitoring even further by analyzing the data employers collect and drawing conclusions about how workers perform, behave, and interact with others.
Reactions across the industry have been mixed. Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, welcomed the new laws and called them a turning point for workers.
“It’s really the first time we’re seeing California workers showing the country that we don’t have to accept [this],” Gonzalez said. She said that there’s still a lot of work to do, but argued that the laws give workers hope that they can push back against large corporations and technology companies.
Some employers and employment-law experts have been more skeptical. Danielle Ochs, a shareholder at employment law firm Ogletree Deakins, said the rules focus on specific tools and uses that don't necessarily reflect how employers are actually using AI.
“Having 10 hoops you have to jump through per tool is not reflective of reality,” she said, arguing that “guardrails that are more aligned” with employers' wider use of AI would be better.
California's new laws put some important limits on how employers can use AI to monitor and make decisions about their workers. They don't ban workplace AI outright, but they draw new lines around more invasive uses, from analyzing employees' emotional states to making firing or disciplinary decisions.
More importantly, the laws recognize that workplace AI isn't just an employment issue. It can also become a privacy issue when employers collect increasingly detailed information about how their workers move, communicate, behave, and perform.
Questions remain about how effective the new rules will be, especially because workers cannot directly sue employers to enforce them. But California's laws show how states are beginning to draw boundaries around increasingly powerful workplace AI and surveillance tools.
Data removal service that scrubs your info from 425+ brokers, people-search sites, and junk mailers
Bundles data removal with identity theft protection, antivirus, VPN, and a password manager in one subscription
Includes Google Search cleanup and a digital account scanner to shrink your overall online footprint
/images/2026/07/20/aura_data_removal_review.jpg)
/images/2023/06/01/incogni-review.png)
/images/2026/10/05/professional_security_dome_camera_installed_on_office_ceiling_monitori_JUQsogJ.jpg)
/images/2026/10/02/artificial_intelligence_corporate_concept._openai_logo_and_signage_on__aw8ekmF.jpg){kind=logo}
/images/2026/10/01/happy_group_and_selfie_with_friends_collage_and_picture_with_personal__bWoeSMs.jpg)
/images/2026/09/29/copilot-photos-reviewed-by-strangers.jpeg)
/images/2026/09/28/computer_screen_with_chatgpt_website_and_person_using_mobile_phone_to_C3CsP2k.jpeg)
/images/2026/09/21/chatgpts-hidden-cookie.jpeg)
/authors/krishi_chowdhary_headshot.jpg){kind=small}
/authors/kate-quinlan-new.jpg){kind=small}
/images/2023/05/25/logo-aura.png){kind=logo}
/authors/krishi_chowdhary_headshot.jpg)