California AB 489 (Health Care Professions: Deceptive Terms or Letters: Artificial Intelligence 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: 2025-10-11

Risk subdomain coverage

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

• Unfair discrimination and misrepresentation
• False or misleading information
• Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
• Overreliance and unsafe use

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document has minimal coverage of approximately 3-4 subdomains, with focus on false information (3.1), fraud and manipulation (4.3), overreliance and unsafe use (5.1), and lack of transparency (7.4). Coverage is concentrated in misinformation and human-computer interaction domains related to AI systems misrepresenting healthcare professional credentials.

Sector coverage

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

• Health Care & Social Assistance

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

• Information
• Professional & Technical Services
• Public Administration (excl. National Security)

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

This document primarily governs the Health Care and Social Assistance sector by regulating AI systems that provide health advice or imply licensed healthcare professional involvement. It also has implications for the Information sector (AI developers) and Professional and Technical Services sector (entities deploying healthcare AI systems).

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding California state statute with explicit enforcement mechanisms, mandatory prohibitions, and penalties administered by health care professional licensing boards.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: California State Legislature; 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'.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer, AI_Deployer
• Summary: The document explicitly targets persons or entities who develop or deploy AI/GenAI systems that use prohibited healthcare professional terms in advertising or functionality.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: health care professional licensing boards; health care professional enforcement agencies
• Summary: The document explicitly designates health care professional licensing boards and enforcement agencies as the entities with jurisdiction to enforce violations and pursue injunctions or restraining orders.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Entities: health care professional licensing boards; health care professional enforcement agencies
• Summary: While not explicitly stated as monitors, the health care professional licensing boards and enforcement agencies that have enforcement jurisdiction would implicitly be responsible for monitoring compliance with the prohibitions.

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 covers the Deploy and Operate and Monitor stages, as it regulates how AI systems are advertised and function in practice, with enforcement mechanisms for ongoing compliance. It does not address earlier stages like planning, data collection, or model building.

Technical Scope

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

• AI Systems
• Generative AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly mentions both artificial intelligence (AI) and generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) systems, programs, and devices. It references definitions from California Government Code but does not discuss specific AI model types, compute thresholds, or open-source models.