Chicago Business Attorney Blog
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.