The Texas Responsible AI Governance Act and work: what HB 149 means for employers and workers

Texas passed the Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act as House Bill 149 in 2025. It was signed on 22 June 2025 and took effect on 1 January 2026 (HB 149 bill history; HB 149, section 10). It is a broad AI law, not an AI hiring law, so the useful question for workers and employers is what it does and does not change at work.

The short answer: for private employers, the main rule is that nobody may develop or deploy an AI system with the intent to unlawfully discriminate against a protected class, and a disparate impact alone is not enough to show that intent (Bus. & Com. Code 552.056). The act's disclosure duty applies to government agencies dealing with consumers, and "consumer" excludes people acting in an employment context (551.001(2), 552.051). The Attorney General enforces it, with a 60-day chance to cure, and there is no private right of action (552.101, 552.104).

Who and what it covers

• AI system: any machine-based system that, for any explicit or implicit objective, infers from its inputs how to generate outputs, including content, decisions, predictions or recommendations, that can influence physical or virtual environments (551.001(1)). That is wide enough to include resume screeners, scoring tools and chatbots.
• Who: anyone who promotes, advertises or does business in Texas, produces a product or service used by Texas residents, or develops or deploys an AI system in Texas (551.002). A deployer is a person who deploys an AI system for use in Texas, and a developer is one who develops a system provided in Texas (552.001).
• Workers are not "consumers": a consumer is a Texas resident acting only in an individual or household context, and the term "does not include an individual acting in a commercial or employment context" (551.001(2)).

The rules that matter at work

• Intentional discrimination: a person may not develop or deploy an AI system with the intent to unlawfully discriminate against a protected class in violation of state or federal law. Protected classes include race, color, national origin, sex, age, religion and disability. A disparate impact is not sufficient by itself to show intent (552.056). Existing state and federal employment discrimination law still applies to the outcome of a tool; this section adds a separate, intent-based AI rule on top.
• Constitutional rights and manipulation: a person may not develop or deploy AI with the sole intent of infringing constitutional rights, or in a way that intentionally aims to encourage self-harm, harm to others or criminal activity (552.052, 552.055).
• Public employers and agencies: the duty to disclose that someone is interacting with AI, the ban on social scoring, and the limits on biometric identification apply to governmental entities (552.051, 552.053, 552.054). Because of the consumer definition, the disclosure duty does not extend to staff in their work role.
• Biometrics: the act amends Texas's existing biometric identifier law, Business & Commerce Code 503.001. A face or voice image posted online does not by itself count as consent to capture a biometric identifier for a commercial purpose unless the person made it public, and biometric data collected to train AI and later used for another commercial purpose falls back under that law (HB 149, section 2). For how that law works at work, see Texas biometric law at work.
• No local AI rules: the chapter supersedes and preempts any ordinance or rule of a Texas political subdivision regarding the use of AI systems (552.003).

Enforcement

• Attorney General only: exclusive enforcement, an online complaint form, and civil investigative demands that can ask for a description of the system's purpose, training data, inputs, outputs, performance metrics, known limitations and post-deployment monitoring (552.101-552.103).
• Cure period: written notice first, and no action before day 60 or at all if the person cures, documents the cure and updates internal policies in that time (552.104).
• Penalties: $10,000 to $12,000 per curable violation, $80,000 to $200,000 per uncurable violation, and $2,000 to $40,000 a day for a continuing one, plus injunctions and costs (552.105(a)-(b)).
• Defenses: a rebuttable presumption of reasonable care; no liability where another person misuses the system, or where the defendant finds the violation through feedback, testing including red-team testing, state agency guidelines, or an internal review while substantially complying with the NIST generative AI risk management profile or another recognized AI risk framework (552.105(c), (e)).
• Licensed professions: after a violation is found, a licensing agency may add sanctions on the Attorney General's recommendation, including a penalty of up to $100,000 (552.106).

The act also creates a regulatory sandbox for testing AI systems and a Texas Artificial Intelligence Council (Chapters 553, 554).

What this means in practice

• Employers: the act does not require hiring notices, bias audits or explanations. Records of testing, monitoring and a recognized risk framework can still help, both as defenses under this act and under ordinary discrimination law. Multistate employers still need to meet the rules of other states where they hire.
• Workers and job seekers: the act gives no new right to sue or to be told AI was used. Discrimination claims still run through the usual state and federal routes, and the Attorney General's complaint form is the channel for this act.

For other US rules, see California AI employment rules, Colorado's automated decision law, Illinois AI hiring laws, NYC Local Law 144 and AI in hiring.

This page covers Texas and is general information based on the enrolled text of HB 149 published by the Texas Legislature when checked on 3 November 2026, not legal advice.