Aritificial Intelligence in Business

September 24, 2026

Can Illinois Businesses Record Phone Calls With AI Note Takers?

Only if every single person on the call actually consents, and that requirement is a lot stricter than most businesses using these tools realize. Illinois is one of the toughest states in the country on recording consent, and AI note takers, Otter, Fireflies, Zoom’s AI companion, Microsoft Teams transcription, and similar tools, don’t get a pass just because a person didn’t personally hit a record button. The law treats the AI tool exactly the same as a tape recorder, and in some cases, it creates a second layer of legal risk most businesses have never even considered.

Illinois Law Doesn’t Care How Sophisticated the Tool Is

Illinois is an all-party consent state meaning every participant in a private conversation has to consent before it’s recorded, whether that conversation happens in person, over the phone, or through a video call. The statute defines an eavesdropping device broadly enough to cover any technology capable of recording a conversation, and it explicitly applies to AI transcription tools the same way it applies to a phone recorder. There’s no carveout for automation, no exception because the recording exists to generate a summary instead of an audio file, and no exception because only one person on the call actually chose to turn the tool on.

July 16, 2026

The New Wave of Deepfake Fraud Is Coming for Small Businesses

by George Bellas

The call comes in on a Tuesday afternoon.

It sounds exactly like your business partner. Or your CFO. Or the vendor you have worked with for six years. The voice has the same cadence, the same phrasing, the same slight accent you have always recognized. Maybe there is a video call and the face matches too.

There is an urgent wire transfer. A confidential acquisition. A vendor payment that needs to go out before end of business. The request is unusual but the person making it is someone you know, someone you trust, someone you would wire money for without a second thought.

June 18, 2026

The Colorado AI Act Everyone Was Preparing For No Longer Exists. Here Is What Actually Takes Effect and Why Illinois Businesses Should Still Pay Attention

by George Bellas

You may have seen the headlines earlier this year about the Colorado AI Act taking effect June 30, 2026. If you were preparing for that law, you were preparing for the wrong thing.

The original Colorado AI Act, formally known as SB 24-205, is dead in any practical sense. A federal court stayed enforcement in April 2026. The U.S. Department of Justice and Elon Musk’s xAI joined a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. The Colorado legislature responded by passing a replacement bill. Governor Polis signed the replacement, SB 26-189, into law on May 14, 2026.

What that means is that the comprehensive compliance framework most businesses were tracking, the one with risk management programs, annual impact assessments, and sweeping algorithmic discrimination duties, has been replaced with something narrower. The June 30 deadline for the original law is effectively moot.

May 15, 2026

Illinois Just Made AI Discrimination Illegal. Does Your Hiring Process Comply?

by George Bellas

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If your company uses software to screen resumes, score job applicants, schedule interviews, evaluate performance, or decide who gets promoted, you may already be violating Illinois law.

That is not a hypothetical. It is the current legal reality for employers operating in Illinois as of January 1, 2026.

A lot of business owners in the Chicago area know AI tools are somewhere in their hiring process. What most do not know is that Illinois now treats the misuse of those tools as a civil rights violation, with penalties that can reach $70,000 per violation, plus actual damages and attorneys’ fees. And critically, intent does not matter. If your AI produces a discriminatory outcome, you are liable whether you meant for that to happen or not.

April 14, 2026

5 Legal Mistakes Companies Are Making With AI Right Now (And How to Fix Them Before It Costs You)

by George Bellas

If your business is using AI, you are already taking on legal risk

Most companies do not realize this yet.

They think AI is:

April 6, 2026

AI and Contracts: What to Fix Before It Costs You

by George Bellas

Most contracts were not built for AI. That is the problem.

Right now, companies are layering AI into their business:

•drafting contracts with ChatGPT

March 23, 2026

Your AI Chats Are Not Privileged: What Businesses Need to Know Before It’s Too Late

by George Bellas

The uncomfortable truth: your AI conversations may be evidence

If you are using AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or Google Gemini to ask legal questions, draft contracts, or think through business decisions, you need to understand one thing:

Those conversations are likely not protected by attorney-client privilege.

August 20, 2024

Illinois Civil Rights Protection Goes High-Tech: Illinois Human Rights Act Expanded to Include AI Regulation

by George Bellas

Illinois Human Rights Act Expanded to Include AI Regulation

Recently, Illinois Governor Pritzker signed H.B. 3773 into law, marking a significant expansion of the Illinois Human Rights Act to include specific regulations on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in employment decisions. This move reflects the state’s ongoing commitment to civil rights protection, now extending into the realm of advanced technology.

What Does H.B. 3773 Mean for Your Business?

June 20, 2024

Using AI to Create Content? Watch Out for Copyright Violations

by George Bellas

AI & Content Creation

Businesses using generative AI programs like ChatGPT to create any content—whether for blogs, websites or other marketing materials, and whether text, visuals, sound or video—need to ensure that they’re not inadvertently using copyrighted materials in the process.

Clearly, the times they are a changing….and businesses need to adapt to the changes. Employers should promulgate messages to their employees and contractors updating their policy manuals to ensure that communications professionals and others crafting content are aware of the risks of using AI-generated materials, which go beyond the possibility that they are “hallucinated” rather than factual—although that’s worth considering, too.

June 11, 2024

Using Generative AI in Business? Make Sure to Keep Your Secrets

by George Bellas

Using Generative AI? Keep Your Secrets

Businesses are finding generative AI programs like ChatGPT useful in functions from financial services to human resources. Although still in its early stages, and far from entirely reliable, the technology is evolving quickly and its tools and practices will continue to develop. The Cisco 2024 Data Privacy Benchmark study found that 79% of businesses say they’re deriving measurable value from generative AI for everything from creating documents to coding.

But this use of generative AI has led to a number of cautions, mostly commonly and loudly about the accuracy of the information that apps like ChatGPT generate—including their tendency to “hallucinate” assertions when they don’t actually have answers.