Italy's AI decree takes effect on 23 October, requiring a human to take the final employment decision
Decreto Legislativo 7 ottobre 2026, n. 179 enters into force in Italy on 23 October 2026. It was published in Gazzetta Ufficiale n. 234 of 8 October 2026, runs to 54 articles, and implements Article 24 of Law 132/2025, aligning Italian law with the EU AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689.
Its Article 41 sits in Chapter III, the chapter on artificial intelligence in training, the professions, work, health and public administration. As reported consistently by Italian employment-law practitioners, including Consulenti del Lavoro, Article 41 provides that decisions on the creation, modification or termination of an employment relationship, including disciplinary measures and performance evaluations, may not rest solely on automated processing, and that the final decision is reserved to a natural person exercising effective and autonomous decision-making power. On that reading, worker consent is not an exception, dismissals taken in breach are void, and a worker may demand an intelligible explanation identifying the weight the AI system carried and its main parameters.
One limit on this report. Remote Work Europe verified the decree, its Gazzetta reference and its 23 October entry into force at primary source on Normattiva, and confirmed that Article 41 sits in the chapter on AI and work. The full text of Article 41 itself was not readable at primary source, so the detail above rests on corroborated professional reporting rather than on the provision as published. Anyone relying on it for a decision should read the article in the Gazzetta text first.
Why this matters, and the part most coverage is missing
The protection applies to decisions about people who already hold the job. On the reported reading, candidate search and selection is expressly not treated as a “final decision” even where an automated system excludes a candidate from later rounds. Algorithmic CV screening would therefore remain lawful.
That gap is exactly where most of our readers stand. Someone applying for their first remote role is filtered by software long before any human decision exists to be reserved to a natural person, and a rule that engages at the point of hiring, discipline or dismissal does nothing for them at the point of rejection. If you are applying for remote roles with an Italian employer, the machine still decides whether a person ever sees your application.
Context
Italy is moving ahead of the EU AI Act’s own employment timetable here, using a national implementing decree rather than waiting for the Act’s high-risk obligations to bite. Remote Work Europe tracks algorithmic management across the EU because the rules keep arriving through routes other than employment law, and this is one of them.
What to watch
The first Italian cases testing whether an automated screening decision can be characterised as part of a hiring decision after all. That is the argument that would close the gap, and it will not be settled by the decree.