Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code § 22602
22602
Effective Jan 1, 2026Added by Stats. 2025, Ch. 677, Sec. 1. (SB 243) Effective January 1, 2026.
- (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) An operator shall, for a user that the operator knows is a minor, 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) Institute reasonable measures to prevent its companion chatbot from producing visual material of sexually explicit conduct or directly stating that the minor should engage in sexually explicit conduct.