On September 10, 2026, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of 13 bills addressing children’s safety online. The package includes Adam’s Law, new restrictions on addictive social-media features, stronger privacy protections, and a temporary prohibition on toys containing companion chatbots. Source: Governor’s signing announcement
For families concerned about a child’s relationship with a chatbot, the questions are practical: What will companies have to change? When do the protections begin? And what options are available if a child has already been harmed?
The answers depend on the product, the conduct, and the law involved. Here are five parts of the package families should understand.
Adam’s Law: new protections for children using companion chatbots
Senate Bill 1119, known as Adam’s Law, focuses on children’s safety when using companion chatbots. It is named in honor of California teenager Adam Raine. Source: Governor’s announcement
The law’s approach places responsibility on companies to examine risks and build safeguards into their products. Its protections address:
- Safety before release. Risk assessments before a new or substantially modified companion chatbot becomes available.
- Crisis support. Procedures for responding to risks involving suicide or self-harm.
- Parental controls. Protective defaults involving notifications, usage time, and persistent conversational memory.
- Harmful interactions. Reasonable measures against outputs that encourage self-harm, simulate romantic interest, or promote emotional dependence and isolation.
- Accountability. Independent audits and mechanisms for reporting safety concerns.
These measures address how a chatbot behaves over the course of a relationship with a child. Source: Senator Padilla’s explanation of Adam’s Law
The crisis provisions do not guarantee a parent an alert after every concerning message. For a credible, imminent self-harm threat, the statute permits specified parental notification or a mechanism connecting the child directly to crisis help. Source: SB 1119, § 21812(d)(1)
AB 1709: restrictions on addictive features for users under 16
Assembly Bill 1709 prohibits covered platforms from providing addictive features to California users younger than 16. The law includes autoplay and certain personalized feeds within its definition, with exceptions for specified kinds of content selection and communication.
A platform may still allow an under-16 user to maintain an account if it does not provide that user with addictive features. The practical question is therefore what experience the platform offers a young person, including whether the service continually selects and plays more material for them.
The Attorney General and local public prosecutors enforce this law. Its enforcement provisions do not give individual families their own damages action under AB 1709. Source: AB 1709, §§ 22682–22686
AB 2246: stronger privacy defaults for children
Assembly Bill 2246 replaces California’s earlier Age-Appropriate Design Code provisions with new requirements for covered online services likely to be accessed by children. These include stronger default privacy settings and restrictions on profiling, unnecessary personal-data collection, and manipulative design choices that undermine privacy protections.
For parents, the relevant issues extend beyond a conversation’s words to what a service learns about a child and how it uses that information.
The statute assigns enforcement to the Attorney General and public prosecutors and expressly states that it does not provide a basis for a private right of action. Source: AB 2246, §§ 1798.99.28–1798.99.34
SB 867: a temporary prohibition on companion-chatbot toys
Senate Bill 867 prohibits specified commercial activities involving toys that contain companion chatbots, including manufacture and sale. It defines a toy as a physical product designed, marketed, or manufactured for play by children under 16. The prohibition is scheduled to expire on January 1, 2031.
The definition matters. The law addresses toys with companion-chatbot capabilities; it does not make every electronic or talking toy the same kind of product. Its companion-chatbot definition focuses on adaptive, human-like interaction capable of meeting social needs and sustaining a relationship across interactions, with specified exclusions. Source: SB 867, §§ 22601 and 22604.5
When do California’s new AI and online-safety laws take effect?
Signing a bill and beginning every requirement are different events. California’s ordinary effective-date rule places these September enactments on a January 1, 2027 effective date, but individual provisions can have later operational deadlines. Source: California Constitution, Article IV, section 8, subdivision (c)
For Adam’s Law, the core safety, record-preservation, and privacy provisions begin July 1, 2027. Initial audits are due by January 1, 2029, or before first public availability if later; operators with under $500 million in prior-year gross revenue are exempt from that audit section before January 1, 2032. Source: SB 1119, §§ 21812–21814
This distinction matters when evaluating a particular incident. The relevant question is which duties applied to the company when the conduct occurred. The signing announcement alone does not establish that a company violated an operative requirement.
Can a family bring an AI chatbot lawsuit?
Under Adam’s Law, a child actually harmed by violations of specified safeguards—or a parent or guardian acting for that child—may seek actual damages and other relief. Financial harm must exceed $1,000 per child; emotional harm must constitute serious emotional distress. Those requirements govern this statutory claim, rather than every possible claim involving a chatbot. Source: SB 1119, § 21816(b)
Families concerned about an earlier incident do not have to wait until the new safeguards begin to ask about their options. California already enacted SB 243 in 2025, establishing chatbot disclosure and self-harm-response requirements. It also permits a person injured by a violation to seek specified relief. That law preserves duties and remedies available under other law. Whether it or another legal theory applies requires a review of the facts and timing. Source: SB 243, §§ 22602, 22605–22606
A useful review starts with the actual conversations and the way the product operated: what the chatbot said, how the interactions developed, which settings or warnings were present, and what happened to the child. A new statute is one part of that analysis. It does not decide a family’s case by itself.
What should parents keep if they are concerned about chatbot harm?
If it is safe to do so, preserve the information already available to you:
- Complete conversation exports and screenshots, including dates and surrounding messages.
- The product name, account details, and any identifiable model or version information.
- Age settings, parental controls, safety warnings, and relevant subscription records.
- Communications with the company and a timeline of what your family noticed.
Keep original files and protect your child’s privacy. Avoid posting sensitive conversations or medical information publicly. An attorney can discuss what additional records may be relevant and how to handle them.
If your child needs emotional or crisis support, call or text 988 in the United States. The Suicide & Crisis Lifeline also supports people concerned about someone else and is available around the clock. Source: 988 Lifeline
Talking with Albazian Law
You do not need to know which bill applies before speaking with an attorney. If you believe a chatbot has harmed your child, Albazian Law can listen to what happened, examine the available information, and discuss potential next steps.
Learn more about our work with families on our AI harm and chatbot lawsuits page, or request a free consultation.