Idaho SB 1297 (Conversational AI Safety Act 2026)

• Authority: Idaho
• Parent authority: State governments
• Jurisdiction: United States
• Collections: U.S. state and local documents
• Most recent activity: Enacted
• Most recent activity date: 2026-04-01

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
• Fraud, scams, and targeted manipulation
• 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.

• Compromise of privacy
• Loss of human agency and autonomy

All other risk subdomains had no coverage in this document.

Risk Coverage Summary

The document primarily addresses risks in three domains: Discrimination & Toxicity (specifically exposure to toxic content for minors), Human-Computer Interaction (overreliance, unsafe use, and loss of autonomy), and AI System Safety (lack of transparency). It has good coverage of approximately 6 subdomains with detailed protections for minors, transparency requirements, and crisis intervention protocols.

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

All other sectors had no coverage in this document.

Sectors Summary

The document primarily governs the Information sector, specifically conversational AI services accessible to the general public. It explicitly excludes services designed for business-to-business use, internal corporate applications, and professional/commercial contexts, focusing instead on consumer-facing AI conversation platforms.

Legislative Status

Hard Law

Legislative Status Summary

This is a binding state statute enacted by the Idaho Legislature with mandatory obligations, civil penalties, and enforcement by the attorney general.

Actors

Proposer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The document is a state bill enacted by the Idaho Legislature, as indicated in the opening clause.

Target

• Entity Types: AI_Developer, AI_Deployer
• Summary: The statute applies to 'operators' defined as persons who develop and make available conversational AI services to the public. This encompasses both development and deployment activities, excluding mobile app stores and search engines that merely provide access.

Enforcer

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: The statute explicitly designates the attorney general as the enforcement authority for civil penalties and injunctions.

Monitor

• Entity Types: AI_Governance_Actor
• Summary: While no explicit monitoring body is named, the attorney general's enforcement role implicitly includes monitoring for violations to enable enforcement actions.

AI Lifecycle Stages

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

• Plan and Design
• Verify and Validate
• Deploy
• Operate and Monitor

AI Lifecycle Summary

The document primarily covers the Deploy and Operate and Monitor stages of the AI lifecycle. It establishes requirements that operators must implement when making conversational AI services publicly available and maintain during ongoing operations. While not explicitly addressing earlier stages, the requirements would necessarily inform design and validation processes.

Technical Scope

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

• AI Models
• AI Systems
• Generative AI
• Task-specific AI

Technical Scope Summary

The document explicitly defines and covers 'conversational AI service' as AI software applications and interfaces. It distinguishes between AI models and AI systems, exempting model developers from liability for third-party systems. The focus is on consumer-facing conversational AI without specific references to frontier AI, general purpose AI, foundation models, or compute thresholds.