In Riverside, two proposals about data centers sit side by side. A September 14 memo from Councilmember Philip Falcone asks for an ordinance that would explicitly prohibit data centers as a land use. The Raincross Gazette reports that the Land Use Committee voted September 14 to recommend a 90-day moratorium while staff develops a definition. The city records we checked on October 6 showed no council date for either. The state has acted too: AB 2469, signed September 21, bars a city or county from approving a permit for a data center until the applicant files water and workforce disclosures and pays the full cost of water upgrades the supplier says the project needs. The bill prints no general effective date; by our reading it takes effect January 1, 2027.
Two cities moved on their own use of AI. Palm Desert’s council approved a citywide AI policy for city work on October 8, 5-0, KESQ reported. It sorts uses into three risk levels. KESQ also reported that the city plans a public webpage listing approved AI tools and has dropped a proposed AI-assisted building-plan review system because officials did not believe the technology was ready. Riverside announced on September 16 a three-member council working group that has 13 months to draft an AI strategy for city operations, the local economy and data-center demands, the city says.
On work, California’s governor signed laws and a regional report estimated demand. Among the laws Governor Newsom signed September 30, SB 947 bars employers from relying solely on an automated decision system for discipline or termination, and it covers cities, counties and school districts; it becomes operative July 1, 2027. The Inland Empire/Desert Center of Excellence estimates that about 1,425 job postings a year genuinely sought AI skills, 0.5% of 286,073, and that 55% of those were for people who use AI rather than build it. The report covers the region as a whole, and we found no figures for the Coachella Valley. Cal State San Bernardino plans a retraining cohort and an AI retraining portal for workers at risk of losing their jobs to AI, but its announcement gives no start date, fees or number of places.
Shopping agents kept coming. On October 6 Sierra announced a Personal Agent Protocol it is building with Meta, Genesys, Instinct, Rocket, Shopify, Stripe and Walmart, an OAuth-based standard for how personal agents work with businesses. Sierra plans a v0.1 spec this month, and none was published when we checked. CNBC reports, as Quartz relays it, that OpenAI and Anthropic are not taking part. The same day Southwest launched a plugin in ChatGPT where travelers can shop its flights and fares, then finish booking on Southwest.com rather than in ChatGPT. Our View this week argues that before we call this efficiency, we should name the task removed, who did it, and where the money goes.
Elected officials are setting AI rules in public, through votes and signed bills. The sponsors of the new personal-agent standard are writing it themselves, and its specification wasn’t published when we checked.