Illinois AI in Employment Checker (HB 3773)

Quick answers

What does Illinois HB 3773 require of employers?

Two things, from January 1, 2026, under 775 ILCS 5/2-102(L): (1) do not use AI for recruitment, hiring, promotion, renewal, training selection, discharge, discipline, tenure or employment terms if it has the effect of discriminating on a protected basis — and never use ZIP codes as a proxy for protected classes; (2) provide notice to employees that AI is being used for those purposes.

The notice mechanics — circumstances, timing, means — are left to Department of Human Rights rules that the subsection itself mandates.

Which Illinois employers does § 2-102(L) cover?

Effectively all of them: an “employer” is any person employing one or more employees within Illinois during 20 or more calendar weeks in the current or preceding year (§ 2-101(B)(1)(a)), and government units are covered regardless of size. There is no 15-employee floor for this subsection.

A small Illinois business using a vendor’s AI hiring tool is therefore inside the rule in the same way a large employer is.

Is the Illinois rule about intent or about outcomes?

Outcomes. Section 2-102(L)(1) is violated by AI that “has the effect of” discriminating — the opposite drafting choice from Texas TRAIGA § 552.056, which requires intent and says disparate impact alone is not enough. In Illinois, monitoring your outputs by protected class is the substance of compliance.

The ZIP-code clause is a standalone prohibition in the same paragraph: using ZIP codes as a proxy for protected classes violates (L)(1) without any separate showing.

How to use

1. Answer for your Illinois workforce specifically — the employer test counts Illinois employees and weeks, not your global headcount.
2. Question 2 is the statutory list from § 2-102(L)(1): tick every employment purpose any system touches, including vendor tools (a résumé screener you buy is still AI you “use”).
3. Read your tier and the two duty notes under it — notice and discriminatory effect are independent duties. Copy the result link to share the assessment.

About this tool

The coverage threshold is the surprise for most readers: “employer” here means any person employing one or more employees within Illinois during 20 or more calendar weeks — not the 15-employee threshold familiar from other employment statutes (the State and its subdivisions are covered regardless). A ten-person Illinois company with an AI résumé screener is exactly the regulated case. The listed purposes are equally concrete: recruitment, hiring, promotion, renewal of employment, selection for training or apprenticeship, discharge, discipline, tenure, and the terms, privileges or conditions of employment.

What the statute leaves open is the notice mechanics: the final paragraph of (L) directs the Department of Human Rights to adopt rules on the circumstances and conditions that require notice, the time period for providing it, and the means of providing it. Until those rules are final for your situation, the safe reading is the statutory one — employees get notice that AI is used for the listed purposes — and this checker says so rather than inventing a form or a deadline the statute does not contain. Vendor tools count: the duty sits on the employer who uses the AI, so “the vendor never told us what the model uses” is a procurement failure, not a defence — which is why question 4 asks what you actually know about your vendor’s inputs.

How it works

Section 2-102(L) has two operative paragraphs. (L)(1): “With respect to recruitment, hiring, promotion, renewal of employment, selection for training or apprenticeship, discharge, discipline, tenure, or the terms, privileges, or conditions of employment, for an employer to use artificial intelligence that has the effect of subjecting employees to discrimination on the basis of protected classes under this Article or to use zip codes as a proxy for protected classes under this Article” is a civil-rights violation. Two design choices do the work: the standard is effect (“has the effect of”), not intent; and the ZIP-code clause stands alone, so a proxy can violate the paragraph without a separate discrimination finding.

(L)(2): it is equally a violation “for an employer to fail to provide notice to an employee that the employer is using artificial intelligence for the purposes described in paragraph (1)”. The notice duty is independent of the effect duty — a fair system with no notice still violates (L)(2), and a noticed system with a discriminatory effect still violates (L)(1). The closing paragraph directs the Department of Human Rights to adopt the implementing rules, “including, but not limited to, rules on the circumstances and conditions that require notice, the time period for providing notice, and the means for providing notice.”

Definitions frame the reach (§ 2-101): “artificial intelligence” is a machine-based system that infers from its input how to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations or decisions that can influence physical or virtual environments, and the definition expressly includes generative AI. “Employer” under (B)(1)(a) is any person employing one or more employees within Illinois during 20 or more calendar weeks in the year of, or preceding, the alleged violation — with the State and governmental units covered without regard to numbers under (B)(1)(c). Subsection (L) creates no assessments, registrations or sandbox: enforcement runs through the Human Rights Act’s ordinary civil-rights machinery, which is why this page publishes no penalty figure for it.

Worked examples

Ten-person logistics firm, AI résumé screener: Ten Illinois employees year-round; a vendor tool ranks applicants. Employer test: met (1+ employees, 20+ weeks). Listed use: recruitment and hiring. Result pattern: likely in scope — the firm owes employees notice and must be able to show the screener’s outputs do not discriminate in effect; “the vendor handles it” is not an answer the statute accepts.

Chicago retailer, AI only for stock forecasts: Forty Illinois employees, but the only AI forecasts inventory and touches no employment decision. Result pattern: likely out of scope for § 2-102(L) — the subsection reaches listed employment purposes only. The day the same vendor suite starts ranking staff for shifts, re-run this check.

Employer that screens by “commute distance”: A hiring tool scores applicants partly on home ZIP-derived commute distance. Whether or not the employer intended any proxy, ZIP geography is doing screening work. Result pattern: likely in scope with a specific (L)(1) problem — the ZIP-code clause is written for this pattern; counsel should review before the tool is used again.

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