AB 2545

AB 2545 is a California Assembly bill that compels employers to assess and disclose how artificial intelligence affects their workforce. It passed the California State Assembly on 21 May 2026 and moved to the State Senate, where it was in committee as of the week ending 13 June. The bill sits within a cluster of California AI-employment legislation moving through Sacramento in mid-2026, alongside SB 951 (which requires 90 days' notice before AI-driven displacement of 25% or more of a workforce) and SB 947 (the No Robo Bosses Act, restricting automated management systems). Together, these bills represent California's attempt to build disclosure and protection scaffolding for workers at the state level because no equivalent federal framework exists.

AB 2545 is specifically a data-assessment bill: it does not ban any use of AI or mandate severance, but requires employers to generate and submit information on the impact of their AI deployments on hiring and employment. The driving logic is the same as New York's A9581, which passed both chambers and awaits the governor's signature in the same news cycle: existing layoff-notification laws (WARN Act equivalents) have failed to capture AI-linked reductions because companies are not required to attribute the cause. Mandatory impact assessment is the precondition for any evidence-based regulation that follows.

California is the most consequential state for technology employment, hosting the majority of the companies most aggressively deploying AI. A bill that requires those companies to quantify AI's effect on their workforces, even if it does not restrict that effect, creates the public record that federal action has so FAR refused to build. Whether AB 2545 survives the Senate intact or is amended is the live question; its companion bills face the same trajectory.