Effective, February 1, 2026, Colorado employers must make reasonable efforts to protect employees and job applicants from discrimination when artificial intelligence (AI) systems are used to make, or are a substantial factor in making, consequential employment or employment opportunity decisions such as a hiring, promotion, or termination.
The new law, Section 6-1-Part 17 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, requires a deployer of a high-risk AI system to use reasonable care to protect individuals from known or reasonably foreseeable risks of “algorithmic discrimination.”
For employers with 50 or more employees, reasonable care efforts include:
- Implementing a risk management policy and program;
- Completing an impact assessment at least annually;
- Annual review of each high-risk AI system to ensure that it is not causing algorithmic discrimination;
- Posting a statement on the employer’s website summarizing the types of high-risk systems deployed, along with how any known or reasonably foreseeable risks of algorithmic discrimination are managed
- Posting a statement on the employer’s website summarizing the nature, source, and extent of the information collected and used by the deployer;
- Notifying individuals that AI is used to make, or is a substantial factor in making, a consequential decision before the decision is made;
- Furnishing a notice if the system makes a consequential decision that is adverse to the individual;
- Disclosing to the Colorado Attorney General the discovery of AI-based algorithmic discrimination within 90 days after the discovery.
Employers with less than 50 employees that do not use their own data to train the AI system are exempt from:
- Implementing a risk management policy and program.
- Completing an impact assessment.
- Posting a statement on their website.
“Algorithmic discrimination” is when the use of an AI system results in an unlawful differential treatment or impact that disfavors an individual or group of individuals on the basis of actual or perceived age, color, disability, ethnicity, genetic information, proficiency in English, national origin, race, religion, reproductive health, sex, veteran status or other classification protected under the laws of Colorado or federal law.