AI Regulation Tracker / Employment and HR
Ontario Now Requires Employers to Disclose AI in Public Job Postings
Since January 1, 2026, Ontario employers with 25 or more employees must state in every publicly advertised job posting when they use artificial intelligence to screen, assess, or select applicants. This is a binding amendment to the Employment Standards Act, not guidance, and it reaches US companies that hire in Ontario. This duty has been in force since January 1, 2026; it is established law, not a new July 2026 enactment.
Ontario has quietly become one of the first jurisdictions in North America with a hard, statutory duty to tell job applicants when artificial intelligence is part of how you screen them. It did not arrive as a standalone AI law. It arrived inside employment standards, which is exactly where a lot of HR leaders were not looking.
The mechanism is a new job-postings part of the Employment Standards Act, added by the Working for Workers Four Act, 2024. That statute received Royal Assent in March 2024, but the operative job-posting provisions were held back until the government set an effective date and filled in the details by regulation. Ontario Regulation 476/24 did that, and the provisions came into force on January 1, 2026. So this is not a proposal or a bill working its way through the legislature. It is live law that has been binding since the start of this year.
What the disclosure duty actually says
The core obligation is narrow and specific. In the words of the statute, every employer who advertises a publicly advertised job posting and who uses artificial intelligence to screen, assess or select applicants for the position shall include in the posting a statement disclosing the use of the artificial intelligence. That is the whole trigger. If AI touches screening, assessment, or selection of applicants and the posting is public, the disclosure has to be in the posting.
The definition of AI is broad. The regulation defines artificial intelligence as a machine-based system that, for explicit or implicit objectives, infers from the input it receives in order to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations or decisions that can influence physical or virtual environments. If that phrasing sounds familiar, it should. It tracks the internationally used framing of AI, and it is wide enough to capture resume-ranking tools, automated matching, and scoring systems, not just the exotic stuff.
What the law does not do is prescribe a form of words. The Ministry has published informal material indicating that a detailed description of the AI system or of how the employer uses it is not required. A plain statement that AI is used to screen, assess, or select applicants can satisfy the letter of the duty. That is a low bar to clear, which is precisely why there is no excuse to miss it.
Who is covered, and who is not
Three limits matter. First, the size threshold: the job-posting rules, including AI disclosure, apply to employers that have 25 or more employees on the day the posting goes up. Smaller employers are out. Second, the posting has to be publicly advertised. Internal-only postings, the ones you circulate to existing staff rather than advertise to the general public, are outside the rule. Third, some categories are carved out by regulation, including positions where the work is performed entirely outside Ontario.
Alongside the AI statement, covered employers pick up a record-keeping duty. They have to retain a copy of each publicly advertised posting, and any associated application form, for three years after public access to the posting ends. So the compliance obligation is not just what you write in the ad. It is proving, later, what you wrote and when.
Why a US HR leader should care
The instinct is to file anything labeled Ontario under someone else's problem. That instinct is wrong here if your company employs people in Ontario. Employment standards attach to the work and the employer, not to where the head office sits. A US-headquartered company with an Ontario workforce that advertises Ontario roles to the public is a covered employer, and the 25-employee threshold is about the size of the employer, not the size of the Ontario team alone.
So if your talent-acquisition stack uses AI to rank, match, or score applicants, and it very likely does somewhere, your Ontario public postings need the disclosure statement now. This is not a policy you get to schedule for next quarter. It has been in force since January 1.
There is a second reason to pay attention even if you have no Canadian footprint at all. Ontario has put a workable template on the table: a statutory duty to disclose AI in hiring, a broad definition of AI, a size threshold, a public-posting trigger, and a record-keeping tail. US states have been circling the same idea from different directions, through bias-audit rules, notice requirements, and disparate-impact enforcement. Ontario shows what a clean, standards-based disclosure duty looks like when a government actually enacts one. It is a good preview of the compliance shape US HR teams should be getting ready to operate.
What to do now
Map where AI sits in your hiring funnel. If any tool screens, assesses, or selects applicants, that is the trigger, whether it is a household-name applicant tracking system feature or a bolt-on scoring vendor. Add the disclosure statement to your Ontario public postings today, in plain language, and do not overthink the wording. Confirm your headcount against the 25-employee threshold so you know whether you are covered. Turn on retention so every public posting and application form is kept for three years. And loop in employment counsel in Ontario on the edge cases, especially what counts as publicly advertised and which roles fall inside the carve-outs. None of this is heavy lifting. Missing it, on a duty this visible and this cheap to satisfy, is the avoidable part.
Questions professionals are asking
Is this a binding law or just guidance?
It is binding. The AI disclosure duty is part of Ontario's Employment Standards Act, added by the Working for Workers Four Act, 2024, with the operative details set by Ontario Regulation 476/24. The provisions have been in force since January 1, 2026. It is an enforceable employment-standards obligation, not a voluntary code or a consultation.
What exactly has to be disclosed?
If an employer uses artificial intelligence to screen, assess, or select applicants for a publicly advertised position, the posting must include a statement disclosing that AI is used. The law does not require a detailed description of the system, and informal Ministry material indicates a short statement can be enough. The point is that the disclosure must be present in the posting.
Does this apply to a US company?
It can. Employment standards attach to work performed in Ontario and to the employer, not to where the head office is. A US-headquartered employer with 25 or more employees that publicly advertises Ontario roles is covered. Postings for work performed entirely outside Ontario, and internal-only postings, fall outside the rule.
Which employers are covered by the size threshold?
The job-posting rules apply to employers that have 25 or more employees on the day the publicly advertised posting is posted. Employers below that count are not subject to the requirements. The threshold looks at total employees, not only those in Ontario.
Is there anything beyond the wording of the posting?
Yes. Covered employers must retain a copy of each publicly advertised job posting and any associated application form for three years after public access to the posting is removed. So compliance includes keeping records that show what was posted, not just posting the right statement.
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Informational analysis for working professionals, not legal advice. Confirm how any statute or regulation applies to your situation with qualified employment counsel in the relevant jurisdiction.