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

Summary

Requires real estate brokers and online housing platforms in New York that use virtual agents or AI tools for property searches to conduct an annual disparate impact analysis by an independent auditor and submit a summary to the attorney general's office. Imposes ongoing obligations to proactively identify and correct discriminatory algorithmic results, ensure predictive parity across protected classes, and conduct end-to-end testing of advertising, captioning, and chatbot systems. Platforms using AI tools face additional obligations regarding advertising separation, prohibition of targeted housing ads based on protected characteristics, non-discriminatory ad pricing, and public-facing compliance reporting. The bill does not specify penalties or create a private right of action.

Enforcement & Penalties

Enforcement Authority

The attorney general's office receives annual disparate impact analysis summaries. The bill does not expressly create an enforcement mechanism, designate an enforcement authority, or establish penalties for noncompliance. Enforcement would likely fall under the attorney general's existing authority over real property law and civil rights violations.

Penalties

The bill does not specify any monetary penalties, civil penalties, statutory damages, or other remedies for noncompliance.

Who Is Covered

"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.

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.

Compliance Obligations 4 obligations · click obligation ID to open requirement page

H-02 Non-Discrimination & Bias Assessment · H-02.1 H-02.3 H-02.4 H-02.6 H-02.8 · Deployer · Automated DecisionmakingChatbot

Real Prop. Law § 442-m(1)

Plain Language

Real estate brokers and online housing platforms using virtual agents or AI tools must have an independent auditor conduct a disparate impact analysis at least annually. The analysis must test whether the tool produces adverse impacts across protected classes (sex, race, ethnicity, and others under New York's Human Rights Law), whether any differential output serves a legitimate nondiscriminatory interest, and whether less discriminatory alternatives exist. 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 proactive 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.

H-02 Non-Discrimination & Bias Assessment · H-02.1 H-02.2 H-02.8 · 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 outputs and modify systems to use less discriminatory alternatives, including reviewing training data for discriminatory predictive patterns; (2) ensure predictive parity across sex, race, ethnicity, and other protected classes, correcting any identified disparities; and (3) conduct regular end-to-end testing of advertising, captioning, and chatbot systems to detect discriminatory outcomes, including comparing ad delivery across demographic groups. These are continuous operational obligations, not one-time pre-deployment checks.

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.

S-02 Prohibited Conduct & Output Restrictions · Deployer · Automated Decisionmaking

Real Prop. Law § 442-m(3)(a)-(c)

Plain Language

Online housing platforms and brokers using AI tools for housing-related advertisements or captioning must: (1) run ad/captioning generation in separate processes with a specialized anti-discrimination interface; (2) prohibit targeted ad options that relate to characteristics protected under New York housing law; and (3) ensure ad delivery does not result in differential pricing across protected classes, and may not charge more for compliance-compliant ad delivery. These are structural design and operational prohibitions specific to housing advertising AI tools.

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 Decisionmaking

Real Prop. Law § 442-m(3)(d)

Plain Language

Real estate brokers and online housing platforms using AI tools must document their compliance with the housing advertising non-discrimination requirements (subdivision 3), retain those records, and publish a public-facing compliance report on their website describing compliance measures and internal auditing methods used. This is both a recordkeeping and a public transparency obligation.

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.