Illinois Establishes Guardrails Against Discrimination from AI

Illinois has enacted legislation that expressly prohibits discrimination by employers that deploy Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help them make employment decisions. The law (House Bill 3773) also requires employers that use AI to provide a notice to applicants and employees. House Bill 3773 takes effect Jan. 1, 2026.

The Details

House Bill 3773 prohibits employers from using AI for employment purposes if it has the effect of subjecting employees to discrimination on the basis of protected classes, such as race, under state law, or to use zip codes as a proxy for protected classes under state law.

Under House Bill 3773, an employer must also provide a notice to applicants and employees if the employer uses AI for employment purposes, such as recruitment, hiring, promotion, renewal of employment, selection for training or apprenticeship, discharge, discipline, tenure, or the terms, privileges, or conditions of employment.

The law directs the Illinois Department of Human Rights to issue regulations to implement the law, including the notice requirement.

Definitions

The law defines AI as a machine-based system that, for explicit or implicit objectives, infers, from the input it receives, how to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions that can influence physical or virtual environments.

Under the law, AI includes generative artificial intelligence, which is defined as an automated computing system that, when prompted with human prompts, descriptions, or queries, can produce outputs that simulate human-produced content, including, but not limited to, the following:

• Textual outputs, such as short answers, essays, poetry, or longer compositions or answers;
• Image outputs, such as fine art, photographs, conceptual art, diagrams, and other images;
• Multimedia outputs, such as audio or video in the form of compositions, songs, or short-form or long-form audio or video; and
• Other content that would be otherwise produced by human means.

Next Steps

• Review policies and practices to ensure compliance with the law.
• Watch for developments on the notice requirement.
• Consult legal counsel as needed.
• Train supervisors on the changes.