Does the Illinois AI employment law apply to you?

A guide for HR and legal teams. About 6 minutes.

If you use software to screen, rank, or shortlist candidates, and any of those candidates could be hired in Illinois, the answer is probably yes. Two separate Illinois laws now touch how employers use artificial intelligence in hiring. One is new. One has been on the books for years and is easy to miss. Both are in force today.

This page is a plain-English check of which one reaches you and what to do about it. It is not legal advice, and it does not assume you have a compliance team.

The short answer

You are likely covered if you hire for roles based in Illinois, or screen applicants who live there, and a tool, model, or vendor system plays any part in the decision. Illinois reaches employers of nearly every size, so "we're too small" is rarely the safe assumption it is in other states. The two laws are:

• The Illinois Human Rights Act, amended to cover AI in employment decisions. In force since 1 January 2026.
• The Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act, which governs AI analysis of recorded video interviews. In force since 1 January 2020.

They stack. You can be subject to one, the other, or both.

The 2026 law: the Human Rights Act now names AI

Illinois amended its Human Rights Act through Public Act 103-0804 (House Bill 3773). The amendment took effect on 1 January 2026, and it folds AI into the state's existing civil rights framework rather than creating a separate AI statute. That matters: enforcement runs through the same Department of Human Rights process that already handles discrimination complaints.

What counts as a violation

Under the amendment, it is a civil rights violation for an employer to:

1. Use AI in a way that has a discriminatory effect on a protected class in employment decisions, including recruitment, hiring, promotion, discharge, discipline, and the terms or conditions of employment.
2. Use a ZIP code as a proxy for a protected class when running predictive data analytics on applicants.
3. Fail to give notice to an employee that the employer is using AI for those decisions.

The first point is the one teams underestimate. The law reaches discriminatory effect, not just intent. A tool you did not build, configured the way the vendor shipped it, can still put you on the wrong side of the line if its outputs skew against a protected class.

What "artificial intelligence" means here

The law works through two terms. It defines artificial intelligence broadly, as a machine-based system that infers from the input it receives how to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions, which sweeps in the scoring and ranking systems common in hiring. It then defines generative artificial intelligence as a subset, the systems that produce outputs simulating human-produced content. Separately, the ZIP-code provision targets predictive data analytics run on applicants. Between these, most software that contributes to a decision about a person is reachable. If a system touches a hiring decision, assume it is in scope until you have confirmed otherwise.

One open piece

The Illinois Department of Human Rights is still developing the administrative rules that will sit under the amendment. The obligation is live now; the detailed rules that interpret it are not all final. Treat the statute as binding and watch for rulemaking rather than waiting for it.

The older law you may have missed: the AI Video Interview Act

Illinois passed the Artificial Intelligence Video Interview Act years before the 2026 amendment, and it has been in force since 1 January 2020. It applies narrowly, to employers that ask applicants to record a video interview and then use AI to analyze it. If that describes any part of your funnel, you have a second set of duties.

Before using AI to evaluate a recorded interview, the Act requires an employer to:

• Notify each applicant that AI may be used to analyze the video.
• Explain how the AI works and the general types of characteristics it uses to evaluate applicants.
• Obtain the applicant's consent to be evaluated that way.

The Act also limits who may receive the video and requires employers that rely solely on AI to decide who advances to report applicant demographic data to the state. The point for most teams is simpler: if a vendor analyzes video interviews on your behalf, the notice-and-consent duty is yours, not theirs.

How the two stack

These laws answer different questions, so meeting one does not cover the other.

• The Video Interview Act asks: did you tell candidates and get consent before AI looked at their interview?
• The Human Rights Act asks: does your use of AI, anywhere in the hiring decision, discriminate or hide itself from the people it affects?

A company running AI video screening for Illinois roles can owe duties under both at once.

What this is not

There is still no single federal AI hiring law, so Illinois sits on top of existing federal anti-discrimination rules, not in place of them. Neither Illinois law certifies a tool as "compliant," and no vendor can hand you that. What both laws reward is the same thing: knowing where AI touches your decisions, telling the people affected, and keeping evidence that you checked for discriminatory effect.

The rules will keep moving, in Illinois and in the other states writing their own. The work that survives the next change is the inventory and the evidence, not any single form.

What to do now

1. Map where AI touches hiring. List every tool, vendor, and model that screens, scores, ranks, or analyzes candidates for Illinois roles. You cannot comply with what you have not inventoried.
2. Check the video interview path first. If any step uses AI to analyze recorded interviews, add the notice, the plain explanation, and the consent step before the next candidate reaches it.
3. Add an AI-use notice to affected employees and applicants. The Human Rights Act treats the absence of notice as a violation on its own.
4. Ask your vendors the discrimination question in writing. Request their bias testing, what protected-class effects they measure, and confirmation that ZIP code is not used as a feature. Keep the answers.
5. Confirm coverage with counsel if you are unsure. Whether a specific role or applicant falls under Illinois law is a legal question, and the protected-class analysis is where a lawyer earns the fee.

Not sure which of these touches you? The free 2-minute check at signato.ai/quiz sorts it by where you actually hire. When you are ready to build the inventory and the notices, the Signato toolkit gives you the templates to do it once and reuse them as the patchwork grows.

This page is general information, not legal advice. For how these laws apply to your specific tools and roles, consult qualified counsel.

This is educational material and a starting point, not legal advice. Whether a particular tool is covered, and which obligations apply to your organisation, depend on the facts of that tool and on the rules in force where you operate. For your situation, consult a qualified lawyer. Signato is not a law firm and does not certify compliance.