A sweeping new AI law ratified by Connecticut’s governor will require businesses to notify employees and job applicants about their use of automation technology in making employment decisions.
The legislation (SB 5) calls for employers to give workers details about the artificial intelligence decision-making tools they use, including what types of personal data are factored into decisions and the data sources. The disclosure requirements apply to AI tools that businesses deploy on or after Oct. 1, 2027, and the measure allows contracting with the technology’s developers to provide the required notices.
The governor’s office announced May 29 that Gov. Ned Lamont (D) had earlier signed the legislation.
The law also mandates that employers notify the state’s Labor Department if a mass layoff or plant closure results from the adoption of AI or other automation, an add-on to existing notice requirements under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, Act.
Connecticut is joining California, Colorado, and Illinois as one of the few states to enact a law or regulation governing employers’ use of AI tools in hiring and firing decisions. Although many Democratic-majority state legislatures have considered similar bills, pressure from the tech industry and the White House have discouraged regulation of the quickly developing technology.
The Trump administration has attempted to restrict states’ ability to govern AI through threats of lost federal funding and litigation. Colorado lawmakers approved a narrowed version of their algorithmic bias law, after the Justice Department in April joined Elon Musk’s company X.AI Corp., or xAI, in a federal lawsuit challenging the state’s attempt to regulate automated decision-making tools.
The Connecticut measure also updates the state’s existing ban on workplace discrimination to make clear that an employer’s use of an AI tool doesn’t shield them from liability for bias claims. The updated language says courts can consider bias testing conducted on AI decision-making tools as evidence that the employer took steps to prevent discrimination.
On top of the employment-law obligations, the new Connecticut law restricts how minors use social media sites where algorithms determine which content they see.
The new law also calls for expansion of the state’s educational, worker training, and economic development efforts related to AI and quantum computing, and it tasks a unit at the University of Connecticut with studying and making recommendations to address AI’s impact on the state workforce.
