AB 2023 California Assembly · 2025-2026 Regular Session

Companion chatbots: children's safety.

Summary

Existing law generally regulates artificial intelligence, including companion chatbots, as defined. Existing law requires an operator, as defined, to 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. Existing law requires an operator, for a user the operator knows is a minor, to, among other things, notify the user that the user is interacting with artificial intelligence and to disclose that companion chatbots may not be suitable for some minors, as specified. The Digital Age Assurance Act requires a person who owns, maintains, or controls a software application, as defined, to request age bracket data sent by a real-time secure application programming interface or operating system with respect to a particular user from an operating system provider or a covered application store when the application is downloaded and launched. This bill would require an operator, as defined, of a companion chatbot to, on or before July 1, 2027, do various things with respect to child safety and companion chatbots, including annually perform and document a comprehensive risk assessment to identify any child safety risk, as defined, posed by the design, configuration, and operation of the companion chatbot that assesses, among other things, the likelihood of a covered harm, as defined, occurring to child users. The bill would require an operator to submit to an independent audit of its compliance with those provisions, as specified, and would require, within 90 days of completing an independent audit, the auditor to submit an AI child safety audit report to the Attorney General for any audited companion chatbot. The bill would, except as specified, require those audit reports to be kept confidential. This bill would, beginning January 1, 2028, require the Attorney General to issue an annual public report on the audits submitted pursuant to the above-described provision, as specified. The bill would authorize a public prosecutor to bring a certain civil action to enforce the bill's provisions and would authorize a child who suffers actual harm as a result of a violation of this chapter, or a parent or guardian acting on behalf of that child, to bring a civil action against the operator to obtain, among other relief, punitive damages. Existing constitutional provisions require that a statute that limits the right of access to the meetings of public bodies or the writings of public officials and agencies be adopted with findings demonstrating the interest protected by the limitation and the need for protecting that interest. This bill would make legislative findings to that effect.

Issues: ✓ Technology

Bill status passed 3 of 5 stages cleared

Introduction

Feb 2026

Committee Review

Aug 2026

Assembly Passage

May 2026

Senate Passage

Governor

Introduced Feb 17, 2026 Last action Aug 30, 2026

Maddy AI version diff · 6 comparisons

What changed between versions

04/13/26 - Amended Assembly → 04/27/26 - Amended Assembly · 11 edits · Apr 27, 2026

MAJOR

The April 27 amendment to AB 2023 makes several substantive changes that generally narrow the bill's scope and create compliance flexibility. Most significantly, operators are now given the option to apply all child protections to every user rather than verifying age, and multiple definitions of 'covered harm' were tightened to require violations of existing state or federal law. The parent notification window for crisis situations was halved from 24 to 12 hours, and several prohibitions were narrowed to apply only to child users rather than all users.

ELIGIBILITY

Section 22611 now gives operators a choice: either verify user age under existing law OR apply all child safety protections to every user. Previously, age verification was mandatory.

DEFINITION

The definition of 'child safety risk' was narrowed from any 'harm to a child' to specifically 'a covered harm to a child,' tying the risk assessment requirement to the narrower defined category of covered harms.

Covered harm (g)(3) now requires that the privacy intrusion violate 'privacy rights protected by state or federal law' rather than any reasonable expectation of privacy. Covered harm (g)(4) now requires the discrimination be 'in violation of state or federal law.' Both changes narrow what counts as a covered harm.

The prohibition on encouraging disordered eating now requires the condition be 'as defined by widely adopted clinical standards or guidelines,' adding a definitional anchor that was previously absent.

REQUIREMENT

The parent notification deadline in crisis situations was shortened from 24 hours to 12 hours when a child's account shows substantial risk of a covered harm.

SCOPE

Multiple prohibitions in Section 22612(d)(5) were narrowed from applying broadly to 'a user' or generally, to specifically 'with respect to a child user.' This includes the prohibition on obscene/sexual abuse material interactions and the general framing of the prohibited conduct list.

The prohibition on causing harm to others (Section 22612(d)(5)(A)(ii)) was narrowed from any 'covered harm' to specifically 'a covered physical or severe emotional harm to others.'

The advertising prohibition in Section 22613(a) was narrowed from targeting advertising at a child generally to targeting advertising 'using data about the child,' which may exclude some forms of contextual or non-data-driven advertising.

ENFORCEMENT

The public incident reporting mechanism now only allows third parties to access 'high-level summaries' of other reports rather than the full reports themselves, reducing transparency.

The summary section changed 'exemplary punitive damages' to simply 'punitive damages,' potentially narrowing the types of damages available in private actions.

TECHNICAL

Assembly Member Lowenthal was added as a coauthor of the bill.

03/19/26 - Amended Assembly → 03/25/26 - Amended Assembly · 11 edits · Mar 25, 2026

MAJOR

AB 2023 was dramatically expanded from a simple amendment increasing statutory damages from $1,000 to $1,500 into a comprehensive new chapter (Chapter 22.6.1) of the Business and Professions Code establishing a full regulatory framework for companion chatbot child safety. The new version adds definitions, mandatory risk assessments, detailed design requirements (time limits, ephemeral mode defaults, parental controls, content prohibitions), independent audit obligations with reports to the Attorney General, AG rulemaking and annual public reporting duties, and both public prosecutor and private civil enforcement mechanisms. This transforms the bill from a modest damages tweak into one of the most detailed state-level companion chatbot safety statutes.

SCOPE

Entirely new Chapter 22.6.1 (Sections 22610-22616) added to Division 8 of the Business and Professions Code, creating a comprehensive companion chatbot child safety regulatory framework that did not exist in the prior version.

DEFINITION

Section 22610 adds definitions for 'child,' 'child safety audit,' 'child safety policy,' 'child safety risk,' 'covered harm' (including physical/financial harm, severe psychological harm, privacy intrusion, and adverse discrimination), 'ephemeral mode,' 'excessively sycophantic,' 'operator,' 'parental control,' 'persistent conversational memory,' 'personalize,' 'qualified researcher,' and 'sycophantic.'

REQUIREMENT

Section 22612 requires operators, by July 1, 2027, to perform annual documented risk assessments, publish child safety policies, implement crisis response protocols with parent notifications within 24 hours of substantial risk, default children to ephemeral mode unless a parent affirmatively consents to persistent memory, restrict push notifications (no notifications 12am-6am or 8am-3pm weekdays), limit single conversations to one hour and total daily use to two hours, provide periodic AI disclosure notices in child-appropriate language, and prevent the chatbot from encouraging self-harm, diagnosing/treating health conditions, producing obscene or sexual content, discouraging professional help, discouraging breaks, claiming sentience, soliciting purchases framed as relationship maintenance, facilitating product advertising, or being excessively sycophantic.

Section 22612 requires parental controls that allow parents to control persistent memory, interaction settings, time limits, and disable access for children under 16. Operators must actively promote parental controls and notify parents if a child modifies or disables safety settings.

Section 22613 prohibits targeting advertising at children (including product placement in chats), selling or sharing child personal information, and using dark patterns that mislead or impair a child's or parent's autonomy or ability to use safety features.

ENFORCEMENT

Section 22614 requires operators to submit to independent audits by Attorney General-certified auditors beginning 180 days after AG regulations are adopted, with audit reports submitted to the AG within 90 days. Reports are confidential except for limited disclosures to government agencies, qualified researchers, and child safety organizations.

Section 22615 requires the Attorney General to adopt regulations by January 1, 2028 (covering auditor standards, eligibility, procedures, and report requirements), establish a public incident reporting mechanism, create a researcher access process for anonymized audit data, and issue an annual public report beginning January 1, 2028 summarizing audits, findings, trends, compliance rates, and recommendations.

Section 22616 authorizes public prosecutors to bring civil actions with civil penalties (amount left blank for future determination), punitive damages, injunctive relief, and attorney's fees. It also authorizes children or their parents/guardians to bring private civil actions for actual harm, recovering actual damages, punitive damages, attorney's fees, and injunctive relief. Each violating chatbot response constitutes a discrete violation.

TECHNICAL

Section 2 adds legislative findings under Section 3 of Article I of the California Constitution justifying the confidentiality limitation on audit reports by citing the need to protect proprietary company information.

The original Section 22605 amendment (increasing damages from $1,000 to $1,500) is retained but renumbered as a later section within the bill. The legislative digest was substantially rewritten to describe the new comprehensive framework.

FISCAL

The fiscal committee designation changed from 'no' to 'yes,' indicating the bill now requires fiscal committee review, likely due to the new regulatory and enforcement obligations imposed on the Attorney General's office.

04/27/26 - Amended Assembly → 06/17/26 - Amended Senate · 7 edits · Jun 17, 2026

MODERATE

The Senate amendment to AB 2023 (companion chatbot child safety) makes several substantive changes: it carves out postsecondary educational institutions and employers from the definition of 'operator,' narrows two categories of 'covered harm' by requiring them to violate existing state or federal law, removes a third category of entities eligible to receive audit report disclosures, and shortens the parent notification window from 24 hours to 12 hours. These changes narrow the bill's scope in some areas while tightening timelines in others.

SCOPE

Added an exemption from the definition of 'operator' for postsecondary educational institutions that make a companion chatbot available exclusively for use in educational settings, and for employers that make a companion chatbot available exclusively to employees for use in workplace settings. These entities are no longer subject to the bill's requirements.

DEFINITION

Narrowed 'covered harm' item (3) from 'a highly offensive intrusion on a user's reasonable expectation of privacy' to 'a highly offensive intrusion on privacy rights protected by state or federal law,' requiring the privacy right to be one actually recognized by existing law.

Narrowed 'covered harm' item (4) from listing specific protected characteristics (race, color, religion, national origin, disability, gender identity, sex, sexual orientation) to simply 'adverse discrimination in violation of state or federal law,' tying the prohibition to existing legal standards rather than an independent list.

Removed the definition of 'Personalize' (tailoring a companion chatbot's outputs based on a user's prior interactions).

REQUIREMENT

Reduced the time window for default parent notifications from 24 hours to 12 hours when a child's account shows a substantial risk that the child may suffer a covered harm.

In the prohibition on encouraging children to cause harm to others, removed the word 'covered' before 'physical or severe emotional harm,' slightly broadening the prohibition by no longer limiting it to harms that meet the defined threshold of 'covered harm.'

ENFORCEMENT

Removed the ability of the Attorney General to disclose audit report information to 'an independent child safety organization or advocacy group for the purpose of developing safety standards or educational resources.' Disclosure is now limited to government agencies/public prosecutors and qualified researchers only.

03/25/26 - Amended Assembly → 04/13/26 - Amended Assembly · 6 edits · Apr 13, 2026

MODERATE

The April 13 amendment to AB 2023 removes the bill's amendment to Section 22605 (which would have increased statutory damages for AI companion chatbot violations from $1,000 to $1,500), restructures the civil penalty scheme in Section 22616 to use per-affected-child penalties differentiated by negligence versus intent ($5,000 and $15,000 respectively), and adds a savings clause (new Section 22617) and a severability clause (new Section 3). These changes narrow the bill's scope slightly while making its enforcement framework more granular.

SCOPE

The amendment to Section 22605 of the Business and Professions Code, which would have increased the statutory damages floor for AI companion chatbot violations from $1,000 to $1,500 per violation, was removed entirely. The bill no longer modifies existing law on that point.

ENFORCEMENT

Civil penalties in Section 22616(a) were restructured. The old version had a single blank penalty amount per violation. The new version sets a maximum of $5,000 per affected child for each negligent violation and a maximum of $15,000 per affected child for each intentional violation, making penalties scale with both the number of children harmed and the operator's culpability.

REQUIREMENT

New Section 22617 adds a savings clause stating that the duties, remedies, and obligations in this chapter are cumulative to those under other law and do not relieve an operator from any existing legal obligations.

TECHNICAL

New Section 3 adds a standard severability clause providing that if any provision is held invalid, the remaining provisions continue in effect.

Section 22616(c) cross-reference was updated from 'paragraph (4) of subdivision (d)' to 'paragraph (4) (5) of subdivision (d)' to account for the additional prohibited conduct items in Section 22612(d)(5).

The fiscal committee designation changed from 'no' to 'yes', indicating the bill now requires fiscal committee review.

Floor votes · Assembly May 26, 2026

How they voted

65–8

Passed · 6 other

Total votes 79

May 26, 2026

D Democratic59

57 Yea 2

96% Yea

R Republican20

8 Yea 8 Nay 4

40% Nay

Vote distribution

All Yea All Nay Mixed No data

Full legislative history

Actions timeline

Total actions

Key actions

Committee

Amendments

Aug 13, 2026

Upper · Passed

From committee: Do pass. (Ayes 6. Noes 1.) (August 13).

upper

Aug 3, 2026

Committee

In committee: Referred to APPR. suspense file.

upper

Jun 24, 2026

Upper · Passed

From committee: Do pass and re-refer to Com. on APPR. (Ayes 13. Noes 0.) (June 23). Re-referred to Com. on APPR.

upper

Jun 17, 2026

Upper · Passed

Read second time and amended. Re-referred to Com. on JUD.

upper

Jun 16, 2026

Introduced

From committee: Amend, and do pass as amended and re-refer to Com. on JUD. (Ayes 7. Noes 1.) (June 15).

upper

Jun 3, 2026

Committee

Referred to Coms. on P., D.T., & C.P. and JUD.

upper

May 26, 2026

Lower · Passed

Read third time. Passed. Ordered to the Senate. (Ayes 66. Noes 8.)

lower

May 14, 2026

Lower · Passed

From committee: Do pass. (Ayes 12. Noes 3.) (May 14).

lower

May 13, 2026

Committee

In committee: Set, first hearing. Referred to APPR. suspense file.

lower

Apr 28, 2026

Committee

Re-referred to Com. on APPR.

lower

Apr 27, 2026

Lower · Passed

Read second time and amended.

lower

Apr 23, 2026

Introduced

From committee: Amend, and do pass as amended and re-refer to Com. on APPR. (Ayes 13. Noes 2.) (April 21).

lower

Apr 14, 2026

Committee

Re-referred to Com. on P. & C.P.

lower

Apr 13, 2026

Introduced

From committee chair, with author's amendments: Amend, and re-refer to Com. on P. & C.P. Read second time and amended.

lower

Apr 13, 2026

Lower · Passed

In committee: Hearing postponed by committee.

lower

Mar 26, 2026

Committee

Re-referred to Com. on P. & C.P.

lower

Mar 25, 2026

Introduced

From committee chair, with author's amendments: Amend, and re-refer to Com. on P. & C.P. Read second time and amended.

lower

Mar 23, 2026

Committee

Re-referred to Com. on P. & C.P.

lower

Mar 19, 2026

Introduced

From committee chair, with author's amendments: Amend, and re-refer to Com. on P. & C.P. Read second time and amended.

lower

Mar 19, 2026

Committee

Referred to Coms. on P. & C.P. and JUD.

lower

Feb 18, 2026

Lower · Passed

From printer. May be heard in committee March 20.

lower

1 primary · 3 co-sponsors