SB-243 Companion chatbots

• Authority: California
• Parent authority: State governments
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. state and local documents
• Most recent activity: Enacted
• Most recent activity date: 2025-10-13

Risk subdomain coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the risk subdomain are explicitly described.

• Exposure to toxic content
• False or misleading information
• Overreliance and unsafe use

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the risk subdomain are described.

• Loss of human agency and autonomy

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has good coverage of approximately 6-8 subdomains, with strong focus on toxic content exposure (1.2), overreliance and unsafe use (5.1), loss of human agency (5.2), and lack of robustness (7.3). Coverage is concentrated in human-computer interaction risks, content safety, and AI system limitations domains.

Sector coverage

Good coverage — Comprehensive governance measures or mitigations with clear procedures relating to the sector are explicitly described.

• Information

Minimal coverage — Brief mention but no specific mitigations, recommendations or governance measures relating to the sector are described.

• Health Care & Social Assistance
• Arts, Entertainment & Recreation
• Public Administration (excl. National Security)

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

The document primarily governs the Information sector, specifically companies that develop and operate companion chatbot platforms. These are AI-based conversational systems that provide social interaction services to users.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding California state statute with mandatory obligations, civil enforcement mechanisms, and specific penalties for violations.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: California State Legislature; The People of the State of California
• Summary: The document is a California state bill enacted by the state legislature, as indicated by the opening phrase 'THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS' and the bill designation 'SB-243'.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer, AI_Deployer
• Entities: Operators of companion chatbot platforms
• Summary: The document explicitly targets 'operators' defined as 'a person who makes a companion chatbot platform available to a user in the state.' These operators are subject to all the regulatory requirements including notification, content protocols, reporting, and disclosure obligations.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor, Affected_Stakeholder
• Entities: Office of Suicide Prevention; Private individuals (through civil action)
• Summary: Enforcement is primarily through private right of action, where 'a person who suffers injury in fact as a result of a violation of this chapter may bring a civil action.' The Office of Suicide Prevention also plays a monitoring role by receiving annual reports.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: Office of Suicide Prevention
• Summary: The Office of Suicide Prevention is designated to receive annual reports from operators and to post data from these reports on its website, establishing it as the primary monitoring body for compliance with the statute.

AI Lifecycle Stages

Lifecycle stages covered by the documents, as defined in the OECD Framework for the Classification of AI Systems

• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document primarily focuses on the Deploy and Operate and Monitor stages of the AI lifecycle. It mandates protocols for deployment (notification requirements, content prevention measures) and ongoing operational monitoring (annual reporting, crisis detection protocols). There is minimal coverage of earlier lifecycle stages.

Technical Scope

Terms relating to technical scope that are mentioned or implicitly referenced in the document

• AI Systems
• Generative AI
• Task-specific AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly defines and covers 'artificial intelligence' and 'companion chatbot' as specific AI systems. It focuses on conversational AI systems with natural language interfaces that sustain relationships with users. There is no mention of frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, compute thresholds, or open-weight models.