No Robo Bosses Act protections are now California law. On Wednesday 30 September 2026, Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 947, which bars employers from relying solely on an automated decision system when they discipline or fire a worker. California becomes the first US state with such a rule. It applies from 1 July 2027, which gives employers nine months to work out which of their tools count.
The No Robo Bosses Act does not ban AI at work. Employers can still use software to score, rank and flag staff. What changes is what must happen next: if a machine’s output is the main basis for a firing or a disciplinary step, a human has to check it against other evidence, and the worker has to be told in writing.
This article reads the signed text section by section, compares it with the version Newsom vetoed in 2025, sets out who is covered and who is exempt, and ends with a practical checklist for employers. It also places the law next to the other workplace AI bills Newsom signed the same day and the rules that apply in the UK and Europe.
Table of contents
- What the No Robo Bosses Act Says
- How Human Review Works Under the No Robo Bosses Act
- What Workers Are Told Under the No Robo Bosses Act
- What Changed Since Newsom Vetoed the No Robo Bosses Act in 2025
- Who the No Robo Bosses Act Covers and Who It Exempts
- The Penalties Behind the No Robo Bosses Act
- The Wider Package Newsom Signed With the No Robo Bosses Act
- Why Lawmakers Moved on AI Firing Decisions
- How Employers Should Prepare for the No Robo Bosses Act
- What the No Robo Bosses Act Means Beyond California
- No Robo Bosses Act FAQ
- References and Further Reading
What the No Robo Bosses Act Says
SB 947 adds a new part to the California Labor Code, numbered from Section 1520, titled “Automated Decision Systems in the Workplace”. Its author is State Senator Jerry McNerney, a Democrat from Pleasanton, with Senator Eloise Gómez Reyes as coauthor. The bill was introduced on 2 February 2026, passed the Assembly on 30 August and the Senate on 31 August, and was enrolled for the governor on 4 September.
The core rule
The central sentence of the No Robo Bosses Act is short. Under Section 1522(b)(1), “An employer shall not rely solely on an ADS when making a disciplinary or termination decision.” ADS stands for automated decision system. Everything else in the law builds a process around that sentence: what counts as an ADS, what a human reviewer must do, and what the worker is entitled to know.
What counts as an automated decision system
The definition is wide. An ADS is any computational process derived from machine learning, statistical modelling, data analytics or AI that issues a “simplified output”, such as a score, classification or recommendation, used to assist or replace human discretion, where it materially affects people. That covers productivity scores, attendance flags, performance rankings, warehouse cameras that use computer vision to track work pace, and many HR analytics dashboards.
The law lists what is not an ADS: spam filters, firewalls, antivirus software, identity and access management tools, calculators, databases and datasets. A spreadsheet that simply stores sales figures is outside it. A tool that turns those figures into a ranking of who should be let go is inside it.
Three uses that are banned outright
Section 1522(a) goes further than the firing rule. An employer may not use an ADS to break any labour, health and safety, employment or civil rights law. It may not use one to infer a worker’s protected status, such as race, religion, disability or pregnancy, as listed in California’s Government Code. And it may not use one to predict that a worker will exercise legal rights and take action against them for it, which targets tools that try to spot likely union organisers or complainants.
| Section | What it requires |
|---|---|
| 1520 | Definitions of ADS, ADS output, employer and employee data |
| 1522(a) | No ADS use to break the law, infer protected status or predict rights-based activity |
| 1522(b)-(c) | No sole reliance; human corroboration when the ADS is the primary basis |
| 1522(d)-(e) | Worker may request a description of their own data; others’ data anonymised |
| 1524 | Written post-use notice at the moment the decision is communicated |
| 1526 to 1526.1 | Anti-retaliation, Labor Commissioner enforcement, $500 per violation |
| 1526.5 to 1526.6 | Union contract waiver; aerospace and defence carve-out |
| 1526.7 | Operative from 1 July 2027 |
How Human Review Works Under the No Robo Bosses Act
The most practical part of the No Robo Bosses Act is the human review step. It is triggered when an employer “primarily relies” on an ADS output to make a disciplinary or termination decision. Sole reliance is banned; primary reliance is allowed, but only with corroboration.
What a human reviewer must check
Under Section 1522(b)(2), the employer must “direct a human to corroborate the decision” using the data behind the ADS output or other relevant supporting information. The law lists examples: supervisory or managerial evaluations, personnel files, the employee’s work product, peer reviews, and witness interviews, which “may include relevant online customer reviews”.
That list matters because it tells reviewers what good evidence looks like. A manager who reads the dashboard score and signs off has not corroborated anything. A manager who checks the score against the worker’s actual output and a supervisor’s assessment has.
When the machine’s output must be dropped
Section 1522(c) is the safety valve. If the employer cannot corroborate the ADS output, or the human reviewer concludes it is “inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading”, the employer may not use it to discipline or fire anyone. The reviewer therefore has a real power to stop a decision, not just to rubber-stamp it.
Why “primarily relies” is the contested phrase
Critics focus on two words. Robert Singleton of the Chamber of Progress, a tech industry group, wrote to Newsom that the obligations apply when an employer “primarily relies” on an ADS, “but that critical term is never defined.” In his view, employers have “no objective standard” for telling when a tool moves from informing a decision to driving it.
Supporters reply that the burden sits with the employer anyway. Under Section 1526.1(c), once a worker shows an ADS was used, the employer must prove either that it did not primarily rely on it or that it followed the review and notice rules. In practice, that pushes cautious employers to treat any tool-influenced firing as covered by the No Robo Bosses Act.
What Workers Are Told Under the No Robo Bosses Act
The second pillar of the No Robo Bosses Act is disclosure, but only after the event. The final law dropped the advance notice that sank the 2025 version, and replaced it with a notice given at the moment a decision lands.
The post-use notice
An employer that primarily relied on an ADS must hand the worker a written “postuse notice” when it tells them about the decision. The notice must be in plain language, a separate stand-alone message, in the language the employer normally uses with staff, and delivered by a simple method such as email or a link.
It must state four things: that the employer primarily relied on an ADS; that a human reviewed the decision and corroborated the output; contact details for a person who can explain more; and that the employer cannot retaliate against the worker for using these rights.
The right to see your own data
Section 1522(d) gives the worker a right to request “a meaningful, objective description” of their own data that the ADS used. Section 1522(e) requires the employer to anonymise any personal information about customers or colleagues in that description. This is narrower than the 2025 bill, which would have given workers a copy of the past 12 months of their data.
Protection against retaliation
Section 1526 bars an employer from firing, demoting, suspending or otherwise punishing a worker for using these rights, filing a complaint, or helping an investigation. That protection matters because a worker who asks awkward questions about an algorithm is the person most exposed if the employer wants to push back.
What Changed Since Newsom Vetoed the No Robo Bosses Act in 2025
The No Robo Bosses Act first reached Newsom as SB 7 in September 2025, after clearing both chambers with large majorities. He vetoed it in October 2025. His veto message said he shared the author’s concern that “unregulated use of ADS by employers can be harmful to workers”, but that the bill “imposes unfocused notification requirements on any business using even the most innocuous tools.”
The pre-use notice was removed
McNerney reintroduced the idea as SB 947 in February 2026 and cut the provision Newsom named. SB 7 would have required employers to notify every worker who would “foreseeably be directly affected” whenever an ADS was in use, to keep an updated list of every ADS in use, and to tell job applicants when hiring decisions used one. All three are gone.
Gig workers were dropped
SB 7 covered “workers”, a term that reached contractors, and “deactivation” decisions, the language used when app platforms cut off drivers. CNBC reports that McNerney stripped the gig-worker language after heavy criticism from rideshare companies such as Uber and Lyft. SB 947 speaks of “employees” and of “disciplinary or termination” decisions. One trace survives: Section 1526.1(c) still refers to a “disciplinary or deactivation decision”, which looks like a drafting remnant of the older bill.
| Provision | SB 7 (vetoed, 2025) | SB 947 (signed, 2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Advance notice that an ADS is in use | Required for all foreseeably affected workers | Removed |
| Inventory of every ADS in use | Required | Removed |
| Job applicant notice | Required for hiring ADS | Removed |
| Who is covered | Workers, including contractors; deactivation decisions | Employees; discipline and termination |
| Worker data right | Copy of the last 12 months of own data | Description of own data used |
| Human corroboration | Yes | Yes, with a listed evidence menu |
| Aerospace and defence carve-out | General federal-contract clause | Specific carve-out for aircraft, defence and space |
| Civil penalty | $500 | $500 per violation |
| Outcome | Vetoed, October 2025 | Signed 30 September 2026; operative 1 July 2027 |
Why it passed this time
Timing helped. CNBC notes that the bill reached Newsom amid record public distrust of AI at work. A July Gallup poll found 39% of Americans think AI does more harm than good, up from 31% in 2025. Pew Research found in August that 71% of Americans expect AI to “take people’s jobs”. Steve Hilton, the Republican nominee for governor, also backed the bill, writing that “In some ways, I don’t think SB 947 goes far enough.”
Who the No Robo Bosses Act Covers and Who It Exempts
The No Robo Bosses Act applies broadly. The definition of employer covers any person who directly or indirectly employs or controls the wages, hours or working conditions of others, so it is not limited by company size.
The public sector is included
The law expressly covers state government, cities, counties, charter cities, special and transit districts, the California State University, community college districts, school districts and other public bodies. The University of California is covered “upon agreement by the regents”, reflecting its constitutional independence. Labour contractors and farm labour contractors also count as employers, so staffing agencies cannot be used to sidestep it.
The union contract waiver
Section 1526.5 lets a collective bargaining agreement waive the law, but only if the agreement does so “in clear and unambiguous terms”, sets out wages and working conditions, and “provides protection from algorithmic management”. A vague clause will not work. Unions can therefore trade the statutory rules for negotiated ones, which is how several US labour laws already operate.
The aerospace and defence carve-out
Section 1526.6 says the law does not apply where using an ADS is required by, or reasonably necessary to comply with, a federal statute, regulation or binding federal contract relating to aircraft for the national airspace, or to national security, military, space or defence products. The carve-out covers only the operations under that federal requirement, not the whole company. For California’s large defence and space sector, that boundary will need careful mapping.
How it fits with other California rules
Section 1526.3 says an employer that meets these notice rules does not have to meet “substantially similar” ADS notice rules in other state laws, which reduces duplication. Two limits apply. It does not cover warehouse quota rules, and businesses subject to the California Consumer Privacy Act still have to follow the California Privacy Protection Agency’s automated decision-making regulations. Section 1526.2 also lets cities and counties keep stronger local protections.
The Penalties Behind the No Robo Bosses Act
Enforcement runs through the Labor Commissioner, who can investigate, issue citations and order temporary relief while a case proceeds. Public prosecutors can also bring civil actions. In court, a worker can seek injunctions, punitive damages and reasonable attorney’s fees.
The $500 figure in context
The headline penalty is modest: $500 per violation. It scales, though, because each missed notice or uncorroborated decision is a separate violation. The chart below uses our own arithmetic to show how the civil penalty alone grows if every affected worker counted as one violation. It excludes damages, fees and back pay, which would usually dwarf it.
Civil penalty at $500 per violation, US dollars (our arithmetic, assuming one violation per affected worker)
The burden of proof shift
The bigger risk for employers is procedural. Because Section 1526.1(c) shifts the burden once an ADS is shown to have been used, a firm without records of its human review will struggle to defend itself. Good documentation is the cheapest protection the No Robo Bosses Act allows.
The Wider Package Newsom Signed With the No Robo Bosses Act
The No Robo Bosses Act was one of 13 bills Newsom signed on 30 September, most of them on AI. Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions and the lead sponsor, called four of them “first-in-the-nation bills” that “put guardrails on AI at work”.
The other workplace bills
SB 951, by Senator Reyes, amends the state’s layoff notice law, Cal/WARN, which already requires 60 days’ notice of a mass layoff. Where a layoff is caused “in whole or in substantial part” by AI replacing or automating jobs, the notice must now list the job functions being automated. The state’s Employment Development Department must publish the notices and a quarterly statewide summary, and report to the Legislature on AI and hiring by 1 January 2028.
AB 1331 and AB 1883 deal with workplace surveillance, including a ban on surveillance tools in workplace bathrooms. SB 574, by Senator Thomas Umberg, stops lawyers from “fully handing over core legal work”, such as drafting briefs, to AI.
| Bill | Author | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| SB 947 | McNerney | No sole reliance on ADS for discipline or firing; human review; post-use notice |
| SB 951 | Reyes | AI-caused mass layoffs must say which job functions are automated |
| AB 1331 | Elhawary | Workplace surveillance limits |
| AB 1883 | Bryan | Workplace surveillance tools, including a bathroom ban |
| SB 574 | Umberg | Lawyers may not fully hand core legal work to AI |
The politics around the signing
Newsom used the day to attack Washington. Engadget reports that he called the Trump administration’s view that the AI industry can regulate itself “bulls*it”. That followed the White House accord signed by tech leaders on 29 September, which we covered in our analysis of the AI self-regulation pledge and in our explainer on how the AI safety accord works. Newsom also signed an executive order requiring state agencies to keep calling the technology “artificial intelligence” rather than “super intelligence”.
Why Lawmakers Moved on AI Firing Decisions
The case for the No Robo Bosses Act rests on how fast algorithmic management has spread. McNerney put it simply: “No worker should ever be fired or disciplined by a machine, AI or not.” AI systems, he said, have “made errors and misjudgments and exhibited bias”.
How common the tools already are
According to OECD survey results cited by CNBC, 90% of US managers say their firms use at least one tool to “instruct, monitor or evaluate workers”, the highest share of any country surveyed. Engadget, citing HR Dive, reports that one in four managers use AI to help decide which employees to cut “often or all the time”.
Workplace AI: adoption and public attitudes, % (figures as reported by CNBC and Engadget)
The cases that shaped the debate
A lawsuit filed in July alleges that Meta used AI-assisted systems to rank workers for layoffs, and that the selection fell disproportionately on staff who had taken medical or family leave. Meta denies the allegations. A May survey by the nonprofit United for Respect found Walmart and Amazon workers increasingly worried that HR decisions are being automated. Under the No Robo Bosses Act, a California employer facing similar claims would have to show its human review.
What other places do
Illinois Public Act 103-0804, in force since January 2026, requires employers to notify workers when they use AI for specified employment purposes, but it does not prohibit relying on it. New York City’s Local Law 144 requires bias audits of automated tools used in hiring and promotion. US Senators Ed Markey and Brian Schatz introduced a federal bill with the same No Robo Bosses Act name in June, but it has not advanced.
| Jurisdiction | Rule | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| California | SB 947 (from 1 July 2027) | Bans sole reliance on ADS for discipline and firing |
| Illinois | Public Act 103-0804 | Notice when AI is used for employment purposes |
| New York City | Local Law 144 | Bias audits for automated hiring and promotion tools |
| United States (federal) | Markey-Schatz bill | Proposed; not advanced |
| European Union | AI Act, Annex III | AI for decisions on termination classed as high-risk |
How Employers Should Prepare for the No Robo Bosses Act
Nine months is enough time to comply if the work starts now. The steps below follow the order the law itself uses, and the no-retaliation rules in the No Robo Bosses Act mean HR teams should brief managers early.
Map every tool that touches discipline
List each system that produces a score, flag, ranking or recommendation used in performance management, attendance, conduct or redundancy selection. Include vendor tools inside HR platforms, scheduling software and productivity monitoring. Check each against the statutory exclusions; anything that ranks or recommends is probably in scope.
Write a working definition of primary reliance
The statute does not define “primarily relies”, so set an internal rule and apply it consistently. A cautious approach treats any decision where an ADS output was the trigger or a main reason as covered. Record the rule, because under the burden shift you will need to explain it.
Build the corroboration step
Create a review form that asks the reviewer to compare the ADS output with at least one independent source from the statutory list: supervisor evaluations, personnel files, work product, peer reviews or witness interviews. Add a mandatory field recording whether the output was found accurate, and route any “inaccurate, incomplete or misleading” finding to stop the decision.
Prepare the notice and the data description
Draft a plain-language post-use notice template with the four required statements, translated into the languages you use with staff. Set up a process to answer data requests with an objective description of the worker’s own data, anonymising colleagues and customers.
Check contracts and carve-outs
Review collective bargaining agreements to see whether a waiver is in place or worth negotiating. Defence, aerospace and space contractors should map which operations sit under a qualifying federal requirement. Update vendor contracts so suppliers explain how their tools score people. Firms building these controls into a wider IT governance programme, or setting an AI strategy that covers HR, will find the documentation does double duty.
What the No Robo Bosses Act Means Beyond California
California often sets rules that national companies adopt everywhere, because running two HR processes is harder than running one. Large employers with Californian staff may simply apply human review and notice to all their firing decisions.
For UK employers
UK readers already work under rules on solely automated decisions in data protection law. The Data (Use and Access) Act 2025 rewrote the UK GDPR’s automated decision-making article, allowing more automated decisions where safeguards apply, including telling people, letting them challenge the decision and offering human intervention. The No Robo Bosses Act takes a firmer line for one specific decision: in California, a firing can never rest on a machine alone.
For European employers
The EU AI Act classes AI used to make decisions on promotion and termination as high-risk, with duties on human oversight and transparency for those who deploy it. The overlap with SB 947 is clear: both insist that a person, not a model, owns the decision to end someone’s job.
The likely next steps
Expect California’s Labor Commissioner to issue guidance before July 2027, especially on “primarily relies”. Expect vendors to add review and notice features to HR software. And expect the No Robo Bosses Act to become the template other states copy, as CNBC notes bills are already pending in New York, New Jersey and Louisiana.
No Robo Bosses Act FAQ
Does the No Robo Bosses Act ban AI in hiring?
No. SB 947 covers discipline and termination. The hiring notice in the vetoed 2025 bill was removed. Other laws, such as anti-discrimination rules, still apply to hiring tools.
When does the law take effect?
It was signed on 30 September 2026 and becomes operative on 1 July 2027.
Can an employer still use AI to rank staff?
Yes. It can use ADS outputs, but it cannot rely on them alone to discipline or fire. If the output is the primary basis, a human must corroborate it and the worker must receive a written notice.
Does it cover gig workers?
No. The gig-worker and deactivation language in SB 7 was removed. The law covers employees.
What is the penalty?
A civil penalty of $500 per violation, plus possible injunctions, damages and attorney’s fees in court.
Are any employers exempt?
Parties to a qualifying union contract that explicitly waives the law, and operations where ADS use is required by federal rules for aircraft, defence, military or space work.
References and Further Reading
SB 947, Employment: automated decision systems, enrolled text (California Legislative Information)
SB 7, the 2025 No Robo Bosses Act that was vetoed (California Legislative Information)
SB 951, Employment: technological displacement: notice (California Legislative Information)
Governor Newsom signs more first-in-the-nation worker protections (Office of the Governor)
Newsom bans AI ‘robo bosses’ in landmark state law, reversing his earlier veto (CNBC)
California’s new law bans companies from relying on AI to fire workers (Engadget via Yahoo)
New California law requires that humans decide firings, not AI (Bloomberg Law)
Newsom signs laws to protect workers from AI risks (NBC Bay Area)
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