Italy's AI law for the workplace takes effect on 23 October 2026. From that date, an employer in Italy can no longer hire, dismiss, discipline or rate a worker on the strength of an automated system alone. A person with real authority has to make the call, and a dismissal decided by software in breach of the rule is void.
The rule sits in Legislative Decree no. 179 of 7 October 2026, published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale (no. 234) on 8 October. The decree adapts Italian law to the EU AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689, using the delegation Parliament granted in Law no. 132 of 23 September 2025. Most of its 54 articles deal with which authorities police AI and how. A handful, in Chapter III, change how AI may be used at work, in the professions and in public administration.
What the Italy AI law says about decisions at work
The central provision is Article 41. According to analyses by labour consultant Antonio Maroscia of Lavoro e Diritti and lawyer Laura Biarella writing for Diritto.it, it states that final decisions on the employment relationship "non possono essere adottate esclusivamente mediante trattamenti automatizzati": they cannot be taken solely through automated processing.
The decisions covered are:
- hiring;
- changes to the terms of employment;
- termination, including dismissal;
- performance evaluations;
- disciplinary measures.
The decision has to be made by a natural person with "un potere effettivo e autonomo", an effective and autonomous power. Both commentators read this as excluding a rubber stamp. A manager who clicks "approve" on whatever a scoring tool recommends, without weighing the case, is unlikely to meet the test.
The consequence for getting it wrong is severe. A dismissal decided by an algorithm in breach of Article 41 is null, and the nullity extends to other employer decisions taken the same way. Biarella notes that the decree does not spell out further consequences, so how this fits with Italy's general rules on void dismissals will be settled in the courts. A worker's consent does not lift the rule.
What is not covered
Screening candidates out at an early stage of recruitment falls outside this particular ban, according to both analyses. That does not leave automated CV filters unregulated. Article 22 of the GDPR, which limits decisions based solely on automated processing, still applies, as do Italian anti-discrimination and privacy rules.
New information rights for workers
Employers must also tell workers about automated systems before they start using them, under the existing duty in Article 1-bis of Legislative Decree 152/1997, which Italy introduced in 2022 for "automated decision-making or monitoring systems".
After a decision, a worker can ask for an explanation that a person must give, not a chatbot. It must say whether and how AI influenced the outcome and set out the main parameters the system used. Rights of access under Articles 13 and 15 of the GDPR remain in force alongside it.
Health and safety, training and professional fees
Article 42 brings AI into workplace risk assessment under Legislative Decree 81/2008. Where software sets the pace of work, distributes tasks or changes production times, the employer must check whether it creates or changes risks for staff and train them on those risks. Maroscia stresses that not every AI tool automatically requires a rewrite of the company's risk assessment document; the test is whether the system affects safety.
Two other dates matter for regulated professions such as lawyers, accountants, engineers and labour consultants:
- 23 April 2027: professional councils must update their initial and continuing training rules to include AI, covering technical, legal and ethical aspects (Article 47).
- 23 October 2027: criteria are due on how AI use may affect the fee parameters for professional services (Article 49). Maroscia points out that there is no automatic cut in fees.
Who enforces it
Article 1 of the decree names the Agency for Digital Italy (AgID) and the National Cybersecurity Agency (ACN) as Italy's national AI authorities. Market surveillance is split between ACN, the Bank of Italy, CONSOB, IVASS and the data protection authority (the Garante), each in its own sector. The decree also sets up an Italian AI regulatory sandbox.
Fines for breaches of AI Act duties follow the EU ceilings: up to €35 million or 7% of worldwide turnover for prohibited practices, up to €15 million or 3% for other obligations, and up to €7.5 million or 1% for misleading information given to authorities, with gentler criteria for small firms and start-ups.
Why this matters beyond Italy
The EU AI Act already classes AI used for recruitment, promotion and dismissal as "high risk". The EU has since moved the obligations for those standalone high-risk systems to 2 December 2027 through Regulation (EU) 2026/1744. Italy has not waited. Its decree gives workers a concrete remedy now, a void dismissal, more than a year before the EU-wide duties bite.
Other governments are moving in the same direction. California's No Robo Bosses Act (SB 947) bars sole reliance on software to discipline or dismiss a worker from 1 July 2027, and Colorado's automated decision rules start on 1 January 2027. We tracked a related push on AI agents and personal data in the UK in our report on the ICO's call for evidence on agentic AI.
What employers with staff in Italy should do now
- List every tool that scores, ranks, monitors or recommends action on employees, including features switched on inside HR suites.
- For each decision type covered by Article 41, name the person who decides and record what they reviewed beyond the system's output.
- Check that the Article 1-bis information notice describes the systems actually in use.
- Prepare a process for giving workers a human explanation of a decision on request.
- Review the workplace risk assessment where software controls workloads or pace.
The rule applies to employers of any size with staff in Italy. Multinationals that run global HR tools from outside the country are not exempt for their Italian workforce.
Sources: Decreto legislativo 7 ottobre 2026, n. 179 (Normattiva); Antonio Maroscia, Lavoro e Diritti, 12 October 2026; Laura Biarella, Diritto.it, 13 October 2026. This article is not legal advice.
