Works council (CSE) and AI: your obligations and how to consult before deploying

If your company has 50 employees or more, you must consult the works council (CSE, comité social et économique) before deciding to introduce an AI tool that changes working conditions or makes it possible to monitor employees' activity. Plan for a detailed information file, a period of one to three months, and a written opinion before deployment.

This article presents a method and is not legal advice. The law on AI at work is evolving: have your situation reviewed by an employment lawyer before deciding. It describes French law.

What are your obligations in a company of 50 employees or more?

You must consult the CSE before deciding to deploy the tool, and inform employees of any system that collects information about them. At this headcount, the CSE and the internal rules (règlement intérieur) are mandatory, and the consultation on new technologies applies.

The thresholds to know are 11 employees (a CSE must exist, article L. 2311-2 of the Labour Code) and 50 employees (consultation on new technologies, internal rules mandatory). If you have several sites, you will deal with a central CSE and site-level CSEs.

Three provisions frame the consultation:

• New technologies (article L. 2312-8). The CSE is informed and consulted on "the introduction of new technologies, any major change affecting health and safety or working conditions" (text, in French). The article does not mention AI: courts are the ones applying it to AI.
• Monitoring of activity (article L. 2312-38). The CSE is informed and consulted, before the decision to implement, on the means or techniques that allow employees' activity to be monitored, and informed about automated personnel-management processing (text, in French).
• Internal rules (article L. 1321-4). If you add rules on AI use with sanctions to the internal rules, the CSE's opinion is required before they come into force, one month after the publicity formalities, with communication to the labour inspector (text, in French). Internal rules are mandatory from 50 employees (article L. 1311-2).

A ruling of the Court of Cassation sheds light on article L. 2312-38. On 11 December 2019 (no. 18-11.792, issued under the former article L. 2323-32 applicable to the works committee), it held that the employer should have consulted the committee before using a banking traceability tool to check an employee's lookups, even though the tool had been designed for internal control. The same logic applies by analogy to AI tools that log or evaluate work.

Does your AI tool trigger the consultation?

It does if it significantly changes work or makes it possible to measure employees' activity. Courts look at the tool's effects, not at how much AI it contains.

Ask yourself these five questions. A single "yes" is enough to open the consultation:

1. Does the tool change how employees perform their tasks, at the scale of a team or more?
2. Does it log, measure or evaluate people's activity or performance?
3. Does it process personnel-management data (scheduling, appraisal, recruitment, training)?
4. Does your AI policy contain sanctions, or is it annexed to the internal rules?
5. Does the pilot last several months, with employees actually using it to do their work?

A writing assistant open to all employees and a test of a few weeks reserved for volunteers are not in the same situation, but the line is blurry. If in doubt, inform the CSE before the pilot starts and ask your lawyer whether the consultation should open at that stage.

In Nanterre (February 2025), the judge refused to treat a pilot used by employees for several months as a mere test: once the consultation is open, the project cannot be implemented before the opinion is issued.

What about ChatGPT or Copilot?

None of these tools triggers the consultation in itself: what matters is how you use it. An assistant connected to your documents, rolled out to a whole team and tracked by usage logs answers "yes" to several of the five questions, whichever vendor it comes from.

• ChatGPT: authorising the tool and framing it with a policy was held to be the introduction of a new technology, even though employees were already using it (Paris Court of Appeal judgment, 21 May 2026).
• Copilot: a four-month test on a voluntary basis did not justify the CSE calling in an expert (Paris court, 10 February 2026, based on a law-firm commentary). That ruling is not a permission for a general rollout.

How do you consult the CSE, step by step?

Open the consultation before the decision to deploy, with a precise file, then wait for the opinion before going live. Here is the procedure, with who is responsible:

1. List the tools and uses concerned (IT director). Validated tools, ongoing pilots, tools already in use without validation: this is the topic of shadow AI.
2. Qualify each tool with the five questions (IT, legal, DPO). Record the result in writing: it will serve as evidence.
3. Build the information file (IT, with the DPO). Details below.
4. Refer the matter to the CSE before any go-live, pilot included depending on your lawyer's analysis (management or HR, supported by IT).
5. Let the period run and answer questions (IT, HR). See the timeline table below.
6. Collect the opinion, keep it in writing, then decide (management).
7. Deploy, monitor, and reopen the question at each change (IT). A change of scope or functions may require a new consultation.

What does the information file contain?

A precise file is better than a general presentation: the CSE must be able to assess the tool's real effect. At a minimum, provide:

• the tool, the vendor and the purposes;
• the tasks and populations concerned, as a number of people;
• the data processed and where it is located;
• logging, measurement or evaluation functions, if any;
• the duration and scope of the pilot;
• the expected effects on work (tasks, organisation, training);
• training and human-oversight measures;
• the DPO's opinion, if personal data is processed.

How much time should you plan for the consultation?

As a rule, plan one month, two if the CSE calls in an expert, three if several CSEs are involved: these periods run before the decision and add to your deployment schedule.

If you have several sites, plan on three months in your schedule. If the period expires without an opinion, the CSE is deemed to have issued a negative opinion, and a challenge by the employer before the court suspends the periods.

The CSE may also call on an approved expert when new technologies modifying working conditions are introduced (article L. 2315-94). Budget for the cost of this expertise in the project: how it is shared between the employer and the CSE is set by the Labour Code, and your lawyer will specify it.

We recommend building the consultation into the schedule from the scoping phase, rather than discovering it at the end of the project. It is the "governance and compliance" step of our method.

Who does what in the company?

The IT director owns the technical file, but the consultation falls to management and human resources: none of these functions can run it alone.

The HR director is an ally: involve them before writing the file, not after.

What does a company risk by deploying without consulting?

It risks having the deployment suspended by a judge, under a daily penalty. Since 2025, three summary-proceedings orders have suspended AI tools introduced before the CSE's opinion, one of them upheld on appeal in Paris in May 2026. They are cited from their text or from the appeal judgment.

Nanterre court, summary proceedings, 14 February 2025 (RG 24/01457)

A pilot phase, used at least partly by all the employees concerned, is a first implementation and not a mere experiment. Deployment suspended until the opinion, penalty of €1,000 per breach for 90 days, €5,000 provisional award.

Takeaway: once the consultation is open, the pilot cannot precede the opinion.

Read the decision (PDF, in French)

Paris court, summary proceedings, 2 September 2025 (RG 25/53278)

A platform giving access to generative AI requires consulting the central CSE and its deployment is suspended, even if use is optional. No consultation for version 2 of an existing HR chatbot, which only adds topics and documents.

Takeaway: optional use does not protect you, and a minor update may go through.

Read the decision (PDF, in French)

Créteil court, summary proceedings, 15 July 2025, upheld by the Paris Court of Appeal on 21 May 2026 (judgment RG 25/13234)

Making an AI assistant available and authorising ChatGPT under a policy amounts to introducing a new technology, regardless of prior use by employees. Suspension and penalty upheld.

Takeaway: authorising and framing a tool counts as introducing it.

Read the Court of Appeal judgment (in French)

Two takeaways. First, making an AI tool available, even a consumer one, and framing its use with a policy was enough on appeal, with the assistant deployed, to constitute the introduction of a new technology. Second, these are summary-proceedings orders or their appeal: to our knowledge, the Court of Cassation had not ruled on generative AI and the CSE as of 10 October 2026, and judges reason case by case.

Does personal data change the procedure?

It adds a separate obligation, which does not replace the CSE's. A tool that processes employee or customer data also falls under the GDPR, and the CNIL publishes resources on AI (CNIL AI page, in French).

Involve the DPO in the file given to the CSE. If the tool is used to measure or evaluate employees' activity, ask them whether a data protection impact assessment (DPIA) is needed.

Which cases fall outside this method?

Three situations call for a different reading:

• Fewer than 50 employees. The company is not subject to the consultation under article L. 2312-8: prior information of employees and the GDPR apply.
• A tool with no effect on tasks. A minor update to existing software does not necessarily justify a new consultation, but the line remains blurry: the Paris court dismissed the consultation for a new version of an existing HR chatbot that only added topics and documents (2 September 2025).
• A group or several sites. How consultations are split between the central CSE and the site-level CSEs requires specific legal analysis.

And after the consultation?

After the consultation, you still need to deploy, train and measure adoption. This is the continuation of the approach described in our method, illustrated by our client cases. Your teams stay in control. To prepare the file for the CSE and the deployment plan together, contact us.

Sources: Labour Code (Code du travail numérique), articles L. 2312-8, L. 2312-38, L. 1321-4 · CNIL, artificial intelligence · Decisions: Paris Court of Appeal, 21 May 2026, Court of Cassation, 11 December 2019, Nanterre, 14 February 2025, Paris, 2 September 2025, CMS commentary on the February 2026 decision (accessed 10 October 2026). Sources are in French.