The ongoing proliferation of state and local efforts to regulate artificial intelligence technology in the workplace isn't likely to let up, requiring employers to stay on top of an expanding patchwork of compliance obligations, the Society for Human Resource Management's chief administrative officer told Law360 in an exclusive interview.

Emily Dickens spoke with Law360 on June 17 during a weeklong annual conference and expo hosted by SHRM, an approximately 340,000-member international society of HR and legal professionals. The gathering in Orlando, Florida, included multiple workshops and seminars that explored practical uses of AI-infused technology, as well as legal risks associated with their use.

"You're going to see the regulation come through [from] the states … and then it's going to be on the company to really determine what the use of AI in their organization looks like," Dickens said. "But I don't see any [federal] enforcement per se yet [because] they don't have any rules around this yet."

Dickens said that the Trump administration has indicated its support for innovation involving AI, as well as its aim of "supporting education about AI," but noted that there haven't been regulations by the federal government that set guardrails around AI use in the workplace.

The Trump administration in March issued a national AI legislative framework, with the White House directing Congress to preempt "burdensome" state laws on artificial intelligence and lift "unnecessary" barriers that make it harder for companies to innovate.

SHRM in late March crafted a set of eight principles it believes should be at the heart of AI policymaking at the federal level that could impact employers and workers. That framework includes support for smaller employers, the establishment of a consistent federal workplace AI framework, and "readiness and reskilling" for workers.

Dickens told Law360 last week that the legal landscape is, for now, evolving largely through state legislatures rather than at the federal level, which creates complexity for companies' compliance teams and potentially higher compliance costs.

"We're seeing more of that discussion as SHRM is putting forward some recommendations, but mostly you're seeing states try to decide to solve this on their own," Dickens said. "For … multistate companies, this is going to be you really dialing into resources and your partners on the legal side and also your government affairs team [in] making sure that they are on top of every [thing] introduced that could impact one or more of the states that you're working in."


Dickens also suggested that certain state-level regulations that haven't proved to be overly burdensome for companies can serve as models for policymakers elsewhere.

"We're engaging in discussions of [finding] what the best practices are … that we're seeing in some of this legislation, because it's not going to stop — you know that — and how can we encourage states that are considering this legislation to use those best practices," Dickens said.

"This is a grassroots effort because we're not going to see a major framework at the federal level, and we'll look up and before we'll know it, it'll be over half the country that has some type of legislation," Dickens added. "You're also going to be seeing other municipalities who are going to start regulating."

Dickens noted that SHRM earlier this year published data about how HR professionals are using AI, with the organization finding that the most frequent use of such technology is occurring in the context of recruiting and hiring.

States, such as Colorado and more recently Connecticut, are among those that have adopted statewide legislation governing aspects of AI usage, though lawmakers' approaches have differed across jurisdictions.

Some cities, meanwhile, have taken their own independent approaches, adding to the mixture of AI-related laws that companies must follow. A notable municipal law already on the books, Dickens said, is one enacted by New York City lawmakers — Local Law 144 — that took effect in 2023.

That law requires employers that use automated employment decision tools to audit them for potential discrimination, make those audit results public, and disclose to workers and job applicants that those tools are being used.

New York City's law exemplifies how municipalities are adding layers to the still-expanding patchwork of rules established by state legislatures that employers must know about and plan for when they chart AI compliance plans.

"The intent actually is to have a broader swath of talent that [a] company can have access to, and we saw that some small- and medium-sized companies wanted to be able to adopt that, but the risk of adopting it and then finding yourself on the other end of a discrimination case just wasn't paying off," Dickens said. "There [are] small- and mid-sized companies that really could have utilized these automated employment decision tools to get access to some of the better talent [that] won't be able to do so, because they've got to kind of think about the risk-reward of that."

--Editing by Abbie Sarfo.

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