Newsom bans AI-only firings in California and orders the state to keep saying artificial intelligence
A day of AI bills reached workers, doctors, lawyers and gene labs, and one order went after the White House's new word for AI.
On September 30, 2026, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed 13 bills in one go, most of them about AI. The one that reaches the most people is SB 947, by Senator Jerry McNerney. It stops employers from relying only on AI when they fire or discipline someone.
He signed an executive order the same day that's a lot less serious. It permanently declares that Artificial Intelligence will be called "Artificial Intelligence" in California, and his own statement makes clear it's aimed at President Trump's push to rename AI super intelligence.
- Signed
- Sep 30, 2026
- Bill
- SB 947 by Senator Jerry McNerney (D-Pleasanton)
- Bans
- only relying on AI when making a disciplinary action or termination decision
- Other work bills
- SB 951, AB 1331 and AB 1883
What changes for workers?
Four of the bills are about work. Under SB 947, a real person has to review an automated firing or disciplinary decision. SB 951, by Senator Eloise Gómez Reyes, makes employers say so when a mass layoff, relocation or termination is caused by an AI system.
The other two, AB 1331 and AB 1883, cover workplace surveillance. Between them they ban employers from using surveillance tools in a workplace bathroom, which the release lists under employee privacy.
The release surprised me by how little it says about SB 947 itself. It's one line, with no start date and nothing on penalties. The state's labor federation, which pushed for the work bills, was a lot more expansive.
By signing these four first-in-the-nation bills, Governor Newsom has shown the country how we can begin to put guardrails on AI at work to ensure human oversight over this technology, limit surveillance, and put workers first.
That's Lorena Gonzalez, president of the California Federation of Labor Unions, AFL-CIO, quoted in the governor's release.
Doctors, lawyers and gene labs
The rest of the batch goes well past the office. SB 574 stops lawyers from fully handing core legal work, like drafting briefs, over to AI. Two health care bills protect a doctor's own judgment when clinical decision tools are in the room, and the developers of those tools have to take reasonable steps to cut known or predictable bias.
AB 1864, by Assemblymember Marc Berman, is about biology. Gene synthesis companies will have to verify who their customers are and check what genetic material they're sending out. Other bills prohibit deleting a digital watermark that marks content as AI-made, and say public comments at local government meetings have to come from real people.
Why an order about a name?
Newsom's statement in the release opens with the White House before it gets to workers.
Super intelligence is clearly not coming from the White House – that’s why California continues to lead.
At 9:34 pm Eastern that night, he put it in two lines on X.
I just signed an executive order permanently declaring Artificial Intelligence “Artificial Intelligence” in California. You’re welcome, America.
The release doesn't print the order's text or give it a number. It does point back to his earlier order on outside audits and an AI kill switch, which gave a group of experts two months to deliver a guide for strengthening California's AI safety and security laws.
More on AI policy
- Josh Hawley's bill would let AI companies be sued and charged over reckless agentsSeptember 30, 2026
- OpenAI's chief scientist joins Hinton and Bengio in telling governments to prepare for an intelligence explosionSeptember 29, 2026
- Trump launches America.gov, an AI front door to federal services, and orders agencies to joinSeptember 29, 2026
- New York City Council subpoenas Musk's SpaceXAI after it ignored an AI safety hearing inviteSeptember 28, 2026