AI, DATA & ANALYTICS
LOOKING AHEAD TO 2025
2024 RECAP
Government and AI
Colorado and Illinois Become First States to Take AI Legislative Plunge
• Trump will revoke Biden’s AI Executive Order by February, and his agency heads will follow suit to rescind current guidance. Some will be replaced with broad, industry-friendly guidelines, others will simply be deleted. And we won’t see any big AI legislation from Congress. • California or New York is going to pass something big. Expect disclosure and opt-out requirements for workers and applicants. We’ll soon see a patchwork of state laws with different approaches for addressing AI bias and other AI legal issues. • Someone new to D.C. is going to get wrapped up in an AI-related scandal. Get your bingo boards ready! In Your Workplace • AI Governance will become all-but-mandatory. It will allow companies to adopt AI with guardrails to help mitigate liability and risk issues. • AI will become an integral part of managing safety in industrial workplaces. It will be used more frequently to predict and intervene to prevent workplace injuries. • Schrödinger’s AI will have job seekers favoring pro-AI employers that show off their productivity suite in job postings, while objecting to any AI being used to grade their applications. At Your Desk • You’re going to open Microsoft Word one day in 2025 and be greeted by your new in-document AI Drafting Assistant. Will it be Clippy 2.0? Or something more useful? • Autonomous AI Agents will take things to the next level. Going on a trip? AI will not only create a perfect itinerary but make the reservations for you. It will also help employers automate administrative work so employees can focus more on higher skills tasks. • Will AI become your new best friend? In 2025, we will see AI being marketed as not only a business tool but a personal friend. Open AI has already warned that users may become emotionally connected to its advanced voice mode. Other LLMs will follow that lead. Will AI also become your life coach and therapist?
In May, Colorado became the first state that will soon require employers to take steps to ensure AI doesn’t discriminate against their workers, including mandatory notifications and impact assessments. Illinois followed with a similar law in September. Meanwhile, both California and New York saw similar efforts fail in 2024, while multiple AI bills failed in Congress this past year – including a notification/opt-out proposal buried in a data privacy bill. D.C. Provided Guidance to Employers While we didn’t see any definitive AI law or significant regulation come to pass from D.C. in 2024, we did get some guidance that could help create a series of best practices for businesses. A bipartisan group of Senate leaders unveiled a long-awaited AI roadmap in May, while the Department of Labor provided 10 steps employers can take to avoid AI discrimination during the hiring process in September. And then the CFPB reminded employers and vendors in October that they have FCRA obligations when it comes to use of workplace-related AI tools.
SAVE THE DATE
AI ADVANTAGE: An FP Conference for Business Leaders July 23-25, 2025
The Willard Intercontinental, Washington, D.C. The third annual conference promises to be our best yet, blending practical guidance with cutting-edge lessons about how to gain a competitive advantage through AI.
The Wave of Workplace AI Litigation Has Begun
2024 was the year that cracks in the dam began to show when it comes to claims involving the use of workplace AI. The ACLU filed claims with the EEOC and the FTC in May over AI-fueled personality assessment tests, video interview tools, and cognitive ability assessment screening devices. And a California federal court gave the green light in July to a discrimination lawsuit against an AI- based vendor after more than 100 employers that use the vendor’s screening tools rejected an older disabled Black applicant.
David J. Walton, CIPP/US
Erica G. Wilson
Philadelphia Partner and Chair, Artificial Intelligence Team dwalton@fisherphillips.com
Pittsburgh Associate and Vice Chair, Artificial Intelligence Team ewilson@fisherphillips.com
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