The executive order does not create immediate obligations, but attorneys say it could lead to changes in WARN notices, severance rules, and bargaining over AI-driven job losses.
Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order directing California agencies to prepare for job losses and economic disruption caused by artificial intelligence.
Labor attorneys say there are few immediate implications for employers. Instead, the document sets a roadmap for where the state might be heading on AI-related labor policy. The announcement Thursday morning also came as President Donald Trump abruptly canceled a news conference where he was expected to sign his own executive order on AI.
Executive Order N-6-26 came two days after Newsom told an audience at a Center for American Progress event in Washington, D.C., that California must prepare workers for AI-driven disruption -- adding that aspects of the economic system must be "reimagined." He echoed those words in a news release Thursday morning.
"California has never sat back and watched as the future happened to us -- and we won't start now. ... This moment demands that we reimagine the entire system -- how we work, how we govern, how we prepare people for the future," he said.
The order sets deadlines for agencies to study how AI could affect workers, update job-training programs, track layoffs, and consider new protections for people displaced by technology.
"Essentially the executive order appears to be a mandate to various state...
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