Regulon.AI — NY-A-09028 · NY A 9028 (Virtual Agents & AI Tools in Housing)

Summary

Requires real estate brokers and online housing platforms that use virtual agents or AI tools to conduct annual disparate impact analyses by independent auditors and submit summaries to the attorney general's office. Imposes ongoing obligations to proactively identify and correct discriminatory algorithmic results, ensure cross-group predictive parity, and conduct end-to-end testing of advertising, captioning, and chatbot systems. Platforms using AI tools face additional obligations around housing advertisement delivery, including prohibitions on targeted options based on protected characteristics and requirements for non-discriminatory pricing. The bill does not specify penalties, a private right of action, or a designated enforcement mechanism beyond submission to the attorney general.

Enforcement & Penalties

Enforcement Authority

The attorney general's office receives annual disparate impact analysis summaries. The bill does not explicitly designate an enforcement mechanism, specify agency enforcement authority, or create a private right of action. Enforcement would likely fall to the attorney general under general enforcement authority over the real property law.

Penalties

The bill does not specify any penalties, damages, or remedies for violations.

Who Is Covered

What Is Covered

"Virtual agent" means an autonomous computational system that utilizes artificial intelligence or similar algorithmic systems to interact with users seeking properties for sale or rental properties to facilitate their search, including but not limited to answering questions, acting as chatbots, providing property information, offering recommendations, guiding users through properties via audio and visual experiences including virtual tours and narrated walkthroughs, scheduling viewings, and assisting with rental housing applications.

"Artificial intelligence tools" or "AI tools" means an autonomous computational system that uses artificial intelligence or similar algorithmic systems to provide functions for an online housing platform, other than acting as a virtual agent, including but not limited to, captioning services and displaying housing-related advertisements to users of such online housing platform.

"Online housing platform" shall mean any website, application, or digital service that facilitates the advertisement and/or listing of housing accommodations for rent and/or sale within the state.

Compliance Obligations 5 obligations · click obligation ID to open requirement page

H-02 Non-Discrimination & Bias Assessment · H-02.1 H-02.6 H-02.8 · Deployer · Automated DecisionmakingChatbot

Real Prop. Law § 442-m(1)

Plain Language

Real estate brokers and online housing platforms that use virtual agents, and online housing platforms that use AI tools, must have an independent auditor conduct a disparate impact analysis at least annually. The analysis must test whether the system's outputs differ across protected classes (sex, race, ethnicity, or other protected classes under New York law), whether any differentiation serves a substantial legitimate nondiscriminatory interest, and whether a less discriminatory alternative exists. A summary of the most recent analysis must be submitted to the attorney general's office. This is both a periodic independent audit obligation and a regulatory submission obligation.

Statutory Text

No less than annually, any real estate broker or online housing platform that uses virtual agents to assist with searches for available properties for sale or rental properties, and any online housing platform that uses AI tools, shall have a disparate impact analysis conducted and shall submit a summary of the most recent disparate impact analysis to the attorney general's office.

R-02 Regulatory Disclosure & Submissions · R-02.1 · Deployer · Automated DecisionmakingChatbot

Real Prop. Law § 442-m(1)

Plain Language

The annual submission of the disparate impact analysis summary to the attorney general's office is a proactive, scheduled regulatory disclosure obligation. Covered entities must submit without waiting for a request. The submission must occur at least annually and must cover the most recent analysis. This provision is mapped separately from the underlying audit obligation because it creates an independent regulatory submission requirement.

Statutory Text

H-02 Non-Discrimination & Bias Assessment · H-02.1 H-02.2 · Deployer · Automated DecisionmakingChatbot

Real Prop. Law § 442-m(2)(a)-(c)

Plain Language

Real estate brokers and online housing platforms using virtual agents or AI tools must undertake three ongoing anti-discrimination obligations: (1) proactively identify discriminatory algorithmic results and modify their systems to adopt less discriminatory alternatives, including assessing training data for discriminatory predictive patterns; (2) ensure that the underlying AI systems are similarly predictive across groups based on sex, race, ethnicity, and other protected classes, and correct any disparities; and (3) conduct regular end-to-end testing of advertising, captioning, and chatbot systems to detect discriminatory outcomes, including by comparing ad delivery across demographic audiences. These are continuous obligations — they require ongoing monitoring and remediation, not one-time assessments.

Statutory Text

Any real estate broker or online housing platform that offers or uses virtual agents or AI tools shall: (a) proactively identify discriminatory algorithmic results and modify such virtual agents or AI tools to adopt less discriminatory alternatives, including but not limited to, assessing data used to train such virtual agents or AI tools and verifying that use of such data does not predict discriminatory outcomes; (b) ensure that the artificial intelligence or other computational or algorithmic systems upon which such virtual agents or AI tools are structured are similarly predictive across groups on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity or other protected classes, and make adjustments to correct any identified disparities in predictiveness for any such groups; and (c) conduct regular end-to-end testing of advertising, captioning, and chatbot systems to ensure that any discriminatory outcomes are detected, including but not limited to, comparing the delivery of advertisements across different demographic audiences.

Other · Deployer · Automated DecisionmakingChatbot

Real Prop. Law § 442-m(3)(a)-(c)

Plain Language

Online housing platforms and brokers using AI tools must: (1) run housing-related ad generation and captioning through separate generative processes with a specialized interface designed to prevent discriminatory audience selection or delivery; (2) not offer targeting options for housing ads or captions that relate to characteristics protected under New York housing law, individually or in combination; and (3) ensure that ad delivery pricing does not differ across protected-class groups, and not charge advertisers more for compliant ad delivery. These provisions function as housing-specific prohibited conduct rules for AI-driven advertising systems.

Statutory Text

Any real estate broker or online housing platform that uses AI tools shall: (a) ensure that housing-related advertisements or captioning are conducted in separate generative processes and have a specialized interface designed to avoid discrimination in audience selection and/or advertisement delivery; (b) avoid providing targeted options for housing-related advertisements or captioning that directly describes or relates to characteristics protected under New York state law relating to housing, or any substantially similar characteristics, individually or in combination; (c) ensure that delivery of advertisements and captioning systems do not result in differential charges to customers across groups on the basis of sex, race, ethnicity or other protected classes, or charge more to advertisers to deliver advertisements that are compliant with this paragraph;

G-02 Public Transparency & Documentation · G-02.4 · Deployer · Automated DecisionmakingChatbot

Real Prop. Law § 442-m(3)(d)

Plain Language

Real estate brokers and online housing platforms using AI tools must document and retain compliance information related to the housing advertisement anti-discrimination requirements in subdivision 3, and publish a public-facing report on their website describing their compliance status and the internal auditing methods used. This is an ongoing public transparency obligation — the information must be maintained and accessible on the entity's website, not merely filed with a regulator.

Statutory Text

(d) document, retain, and provide public-facing reporting on such real estate broker's or online housing platform's website, information on compliance with this subdivision, and any internal auditing methods used for such compliance.