A surprising number of decisions about you now get made, or mostly made, by software. Whether your résumé ever reaches a human, whether a loan application gets flagged, and sometimes whether you keep your job. The name for that is automated decision-making, and lawmakers have started writing rules about it.
It’s one of those terms you’ll see in fine print long before you see it in a headline.
What it means
Automated decision-making (ADM) is when software or AI makes a decision about a person with little or no human involvement. Think résumé screeners, credit scoring, and the fraud flags that freeze your bank card on vacation. The software might be a simple scoring rule or a big AI model. What makes it ADM is that nobody really looks before the decision lands on you. The usual fix lawmakers reach for is HITL (a human in the loop who checks the call).
Why it matters
Europe set the baseline years ago. Under GDPR Article 22 (part of the big EU privacy law), people in the EU have “the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing,” with a few exceptions. Even then, you can ask for a human to review it.
U.S. rules are a patchwork. New York City has required bias audits for automated hiring tools since July 2023. Colorado passed a broad AI law, then scaled it back in May 2026 before it ever took effect. And a lawsuit claiming Workday’s screening software discriminated against applicants over 40 was allowed to move forward as a nationwide collective action in May 2025.
California just drew a line on firing. On September 30, 2026, Governor Newsom signed SB 947, nicknamed the “No Robo Bosses Act.” Starting July 1, 2027, employers can’t rely on AI alone to fire or discipline someone. A human has to check the decision against other records, and the worker gets written notice.
Simple example
A restaurant gets 300 applications for two server jobs. The owner doesn’t have time to read them, so he sets up a filter that tosses anyone without “fine dining” somewhere on their résumé.
The guy with eight years at the busiest diner in town never gets a call. He’d have been great, honestly. He could carry four plates and remember a table of twelve without writing anything down.
Nobody decided he wasn’t good enough. Nobody looked at all.