California SB-300 (Companion chatbots).

• Authority: California
• Parent authority: State governments
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. state and local documents
• Most recent activity: Proposed
• Most recent activity date: 2026-01-26

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
• Lack of transparency or interpretability

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

• False or misleading information
• Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
• Lack of capability or robustness

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document primarily addresses human-computer interaction risks, specifically overreliance and unsafe use (5.1), exposure to toxic content (1.2), and lack of transparency (7.4). It has good coverage of these 3 subdomains with explicit requirements for disclosure, content prevention, and user protection mechanisms, particularly for minors.

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.

• Arts, Entertainment & Recreation

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

The document specifically governs the Information sector, as it regulates operators of companion chatbot platforms, which are software/digital information services. There may be secondary applicability to Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation if companion chatbots are used for entertainment purposes.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding California state statute that amends the Business and Professions Code with mandatory obligations on companion chatbot operators, using legally enforceable language throughout.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The document begins with the standard California legislative enactment clause and amends the California Business and Professions Code, indicating it was proposed and enacted by the California Legislature.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Deployer
• Summary: The legislation specifically targets 'operators' of companion chatbot platforms, imposing various obligations on them regarding notification, content prevention, and safety protocols. These operators are deploying AI systems (companion chatbots) to end users.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: While enforcement mechanisms are not detailed in this excerpt, California legislation is typically enforced by the California Attorney General or relevant state regulatory agencies. The binding nature of the statute ('shall') implies state enforcement authority.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The document requires operators to publish safety protocols on their websites, which suggests government oversight capability, but no specific monitoring body is named in this excerpt. Monitoring responsibilities may be defined elsewhere in the full statute.

AI Lifecycle Stages

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

• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document primarily addresses the Deploy and Operate and Monitor lifecycle stages, focusing on operational requirements for companion chatbot platforms including user notifications, content safety protocols, and ongoing monitoring of interactions, particularly with minors.

Technical Scope

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

• AI Systems
• Task-specific AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly addresses AI systems in the form of companion chatbots and artificial intelligence more broadly, but does not mention frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, compute thresholds, or open-weight models. The focus is on a specific application of AI (companion chatbots) rather than technical AI categories or model specifications.