Companion chatbots., the official text

An act to amend Section 22602 of the Business and Professions Code, relating to artificial intelligence.

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

Existing law requires that if a reasonable person interacting with a companion chatbot, as defined, would be misled to believe that the person is interacting with a human, an operator of a companion chatbot platform must issue a clear and conspicuous notification indicating that the companion chatbot is artificially generated and not human. Existing law requires a chatbot operator to maintain a protocol for preventing the production of suicidal ideation, suicide, or self-harm content to the user, as specified, and would require an operator to publish details on that protocol on the operator’s internet website. Existing law requires an operator to take certain actions with respect to a user the operator knows is a minor, including instituting reasonable measures to prevent the companion chatbot from producing sexually explicit visual material or proposing sexually explicit conduct.
This bill would instead require a companion chatbot operator to take the above actions when it has constructive knowledge that a user is a minor. This bill would instead require an operator to prevent its companion chatbot from producing or facilitating the exchange of any sexually explicit material or proposing sexually explicit conduct.

The people of the State of California do enact as follows:

SECTION 1.
Section 22602 of the Business and Professions Code, as added by Section 1 of Chapter 677 of the Statutes of 2025, is amended to read:
22602.
(a) If a reasonable person interacting with a companion chatbot would be misled to believe that the person is interacting with a human, an operator shall issue a clear and conspicuous notification indicating that the companion chatbot is artificially generated and not human.
(b) (1) An operator shall prevent a companion chatbot on its companion chatbot platform from engaging with users unless the operator maintains a protocol for preventing the production of suicidal ideation, suicide, or self-harm content to the user, including, but not limited to, by providing a notification to the user that refers the user to crisis service providers, including a suicide hotline or crisis text line, if the user expresses suicidal ideation, suicide, or self-harm.
(2) The operator shall publish details on the protocol required by this subdivision on the operator’s internet website.
(c) When an operator has actual knowledge that a user is a minor, they shall do all of the following:
(1) Disclose to the user that the user is interacting with artificial intelligence.
(2) Provide by default a clear and conspicuous notification to the user at least every three hours for continuing companion chatbot interactions that reminds the user to take a break and that the companion chatbot is artificially generated and not human.
(3) Prevent its companion chatbot from producing or facilitating the exchange of material of sexually explicit conduct or directly stating that the minor should engage in sexually explicit conduct.