California Signs SB 951 and AB 1883, New AI Workplace Laws for Employers

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 951 and Assembly Bill 1883 into law on September 30, 2026, adding new artificial-intelligence rules for employers statewide. SB 951 adds AI-related layoff-notice duties to the state's WARN law, while AB 1883 restricts AI-enabled workplace surveillance of employee emotions and neural data.

What it is

SB 951 amends the California Worker Adjustment and Retraining Act, known as Cal/WARN, to require an employer giving notice of a mass layoff, relocation, or termination caused in whole or in substantial part by an artificial intelligence (AI) system or other automated technology replacing or automating employment positions to include additional disclosures. AB 1883 is a new Labor Code measure under which it prohibits employers from using AI-enabled workplace surveillance tools to recognize or infer an employee's emotional state or collect neural data, subject to limited exceptions. Both bills were signed as part of a package of bills regulating the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace, including SB 947, SB 951 and AB 1883. The new workplace laws layer onto earlier action by the state's Civil Rights Council, whose regulations provide increased clarity on how existing antidiscrimination laws apply to the use of artificial intelligence in employment decisions.

What it requires

SB 951's notice duties apply to employers that have employed 75 people or more within the preceding 12 months, which is consistent with the Cal/WARN Act's previous requirements. The law was written to require additional disclosures when AI or other automated technologies contribute substantially to a covered workforce reduction, and the new requirements take effect January 1, 2027. Qualifying notices must also include the number, occupation and work location of layoffs due to AI automations; the job functions previously performed by workers that will be automated; and the category or type of AI that caused the layoffs. AB 1883, effective January 1, 2027, restricts employers' use of workplace surveillance tools that use AI for certain purposes. The statute's neural-data prohibition covers information generated by measuring activity of an employee's central or peripheral nervous system that is not inferred from nonneural information. Employers that are found to have violated AB 1883 can incur a civil penalty of $500 per violation.

What security leaders should do

Security and compliance teams should map every employee-monitoring tool against the AI definitions in these laws, since emotion-inference and neural-sensing features can trigger AB 1883 even when bundled into broader productivity or safety platforms. Teams supporting HR and workforce-planning functions should build a documentation trail showing whether automation substantially caused any covered layoff, since that determination drives SB 951's added Cal-WARN disclosures. CISOs overseeing vendor risk for AI monitoring products should request evidence of what biometric or behavioral signals a tool collects and whether outputs are used to infer emotional state, so procurement decisions can be defended if the Labor Commissioner or a public prosecutor investigates. Because both laws take effect January 1, 2027, inventorying current AI-enabled workplace tools well before that date will give security and legal teams time to adjust configurations or retire noncompliant features.