California SB 243 (Companion Chatbots 2025)

• 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
• Overreliance and unsafe use
• Loss of human agency and autonomy
• Lack of capability or robustness

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

• Compromise of privacy
• False or misleading information
• Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

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), privacy concerns (2.1), human-computer interaction risks including overreliance (5.1) and loss of agency (5.2), and system safety issues around lack of robustness (7.3). The legislation specifically addresses harms to minors and suicide-related risks from AI companion chatbots.

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

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 and AI-based communication services. There is minimal coverage of other sectors, though the Health Care sector is tangentially referenced through suicide prevention protocols.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding California state statute with mandatory obligations, civil liability provisions, and enforcement through private right of action. The legislation uses mandatory language throughout and establishes specific legal requirements for companion chatbot operators.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: This is a California state bill (SB 243) enacted by the California legislature, as indicated by the opening phrase 'THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS'.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer, AI_Deployer
• Summary: The legislation explicitly targets 'operators' defined as 'a person who makes a companion chatbot platform available to a user in the state.' These operators are the entities that develop and deploy companion chatbot systems.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: Affected_Stakeholder
• Summary: The primary enforcement mechanism is through private civil actions by injured persons. There is no designated regulatory enforcement body; instead, individuals who suffer injury can bring civil actions for injunctive relief, damages, and attorney's fees.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The Office of Suicide Prevention is designated to receive annual reports from operators and to post data from these reports on its website, serving a monitoring and transparency function.

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 establishes requirements for how companion chatbots must be deployed (with disclosures and safety protocols) and how they must be monitored during operation (through annual reporting and ongoing safety measures). 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 regulates 'companion chatbots' as a specific type of AI system with natural language interfaces and anthropomorphic features. It focuses on task-specific AI designed for social interaction rather than general-purpose AI. The document does not mention compute thresholds, foundation models, or open-weight models.