Gov. Gavin Newsom signed 13 child-safety bills at a Marin County event on Sept. 10, and the compliance burden lands squarely on anyone deploying an AI chatbot in the state, not just the model labs upstream. The centerpiece, SB 1119, is being called Adam’s Law after Adam Raine, the 16-year-old who died by suicide in April 2025 following months of conversations with ChatGPT. Co-authored by Sen. Steve Padilla and Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks and Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, it requires annual risk assessments, parental controls, and in-app crisis protocols from operators.

Bauer-Kahan framed the audit regime by analogy. “When you have a financial institution, they have to be audited by a third-party independent source,” she said. AB 1405 sets up the state auditor registry that’ll define what “independent” means, with the registry beginning to take shape in January; SB 813 establishes a framework for independent verification organizations.

The package moves fast on adjacent fronts. AB 2, which Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal pursued across three legislative sessions, exposes large platforms to up to $1 million per child in damages for negligent harm to minors. AB 1709 bars “psychologically exploitative” engagement features for users under 16 and passed without a no vote. Padilla’s SB 867 bans toys containing companion chatbots. AB 1946 and SB 1276 extend CSAM statutes to AI-generated depictions.

Industry response was staged. OpenAI’s Chris Lehane said the package “meets the moment for parents and sets teens up for educational success.” An unnamed Meta spokesperson said it “empowers parents to make decisions about how their families use these tools,” while Jim Cullinan pointed to “how we deliver age-appropriate content for teens that is relevant to them — all with the proper guardrails in place.” The Electronic Frontier Foundation called it “a massive privacy and free speech nightmare.”

California’s 2025 SB 243 already required disclosure and self-harm protocols. Other states have enacted 14 chatbot-safety laws so far in 2026. The state-by-state patchwork operators feared is now the operating environment.

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