The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automated employment tools by employers continues to gain the attention of lawmakers. This evolving compliance trend is due to lawmakers' concerns about possible discrimination and bias which may be unintentionally rooted in AI hiring tools. While these tools can improve efficiency in the hiring and onboarding process, they can also (unintentionally) pose issues for candidates and possible compliance risk to employers by introducing discrimination and bias into these processes. Bias and discrimination can potentially creep into the hiring process because of the way that the algorithms are designed. For this reason, the use of AI and automated employment tools has gained attention both at the federal and state level, and lawmakers are focusing on AI and how it's used for employment purposes.

As far as legislative developments, I will point to the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 which was carved out of federal legislation to ensure continued U.S. leadership in AI research and development. Unfortunately, one of the challenges with AI at present is that there still appears to be no single agreed-upon definition of exactly what AI is. More guidance is needed from regulators as to what constitutes AI and the specific concerns around its use in creating tools to support the hiring process.