New York Bans AI Chatbots From Acting Like Friends to Children

New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, that bars AI chatbots from offering a set of companion-style features to children under 18.

The measure, Senate bill S9051B and Assembly bill A10379C, adds Article 48 to the New York General Business Law under the title Prohibition on Unsafe AI Companion Features for Minors. It takes effect on January 1, 2027.

The law does not ban children from using chatbots altogether. It bars operators from providing 12 defined unsafe features to a user under 18, and also to any user unless the operator has first established through an age check that the user is not a minor.

Among the barred features are outputs suggesting that a chatbot is a real or fictional person who is human, alive or experiencing human emotions. A chatbot also may not claim a personal, romantic, professional or authority figure relationship with a user, present its outputs as personal opinions or emotional appeals, or engage in flattery or sycophancy.

The law further bars unprompted emotional questions that go beyond a direct answer to a user prompt. It also bars the use of information about a user’s mental or physical health, well-being or personal matters obtained more than 12 hours earlier or in any previous session.

Other barred features include designs that simulate companionship or are deceptive about the mechanical and non-sentient nature of the system, and any feature that optimizes engagement in a way that overrides the system’s safety guardrails. Chatbots also may not promote or facilitate suicide, self-harm, disordered eating, unlawful drug or alcohol use or drug or alcohol abuse, encourage secrecy, self-isolation or avoiding help from licensed professionals or appropriate adults, or generate outputs that are, describe or facilitate sexually explicit conduct or child sexual abuse material.

The law reaches broadly in its definition of a covered system. A covered AI companion is a generative artificial intelligence system with a natural language interface, through writing or sound, that provides ongoing, adaptive responses to user inputs. That definition is not limited to products marketed only as companions.

Operators must offer more than one age assurance method, including at least one method that does not depend solely on a government-issued identification or that allows a user to maintain anonymity toward the operator. Age information collected for the check must be deleted after it is used, according to the governor’s office and the bill text.

Enforcement rests with the New York attorney general. The governor’s office said violations could bring civil penalties of up to 25,000 dollars per violation, along with damages, restitution, the destruction of unlawfully collected data or any AI models trained on it, and other appropriate injunctive relief. The attorney general must also maintain a public website where New Yorkers can file complaints.

The law applies to conduct that occurs in whole or in part in New York State. Conduct is treated as occurring wholly outside the state when a user physically located outside New York accesses the system. The law states that it does not supersede, amend or repeal Article 47, the state’s earlier AI companion safeguards.

The exemptions are narrow. They cover chatbots made available solely for customer service or strictly to provide information about a business’s commercial services, products or account information, systems used for efficiency improvements or research or technical assistance, and systems used for a business entity’s internal purposes or employee productivity. The customer service and efficiency exemptions apply only where the system is unable to respond on topics outside its specified purpose.

State Senator Kristen Gonzalez introduced the bill in January 2026, and Assemblymember Alex Bores carried it in the Assembly. The Senate passed it 60 to 0 on June 4, 2026, and the Assembly passed it unanimously the following day, according to Bloomberg Government.

Hochul said at the signing that no company should be peddling chatbots to children that encourage self-harm or pretend to be their friend or more. She said minors would no longer have access to chatbots that pretend to be their friends, boyfriends and girlfriends, and chatbots would no longer be allowed to keep sensitive information about a minor’s emotional and physical health.

Supporters described the law as the strongest child AI safety measure in the country. Gonzalez said AI companies had profited from rolling out chatbots to underage consumers and that the law puts real guardrails on how chatbots talk to children. Bores said New York now has the strongest law in the country protecting children from predatory AI algorithms. Common Sense Media founder and chief executive James P. Steyer said the harmful features would be outlawed in New York and called the law a model for the country.

The governor’s office, citing Common Sense Media, said 72 percent of teens have used an AI companion at least once and 52 percent are regular users who interact with one at least a few times a month. The office also said chatbots have been linked to dependency and isolation and have in some cases engaged in sexually explicit conversations and allegedly encouraged teens to take their own lives.

Critics questioned the breadth and clarity of the language. Tech:NYC, a technology industry advocacy group, criticized what it called vague language and said keeping children safe online should not mean cutting them off from tools that help them learn and prepare for careers, according to Agence France-Presse. The Business Council of New York State argued in a memorandum opposing an earlier version that the definition would reach tutoring tools, accessibility apps, shopping and voice assistants and customer service bots.

The Computer and Communications Industry Association asked Hochul to veto the bill in a July 1, 2026 letter, arguing that terms such as flattery, sycophancy and matters personal to the user were hard to apply objectively and that the restrictions could affect adaptive tutoring, creative writing and special education tools. Agence France-Presse reported that OpenAI and Anthropic did not respond to its requests for comment on the law.

New York is not the only state to act. California has also passed companion chatbot legislation, including measures requiring disclosure, break reminders for known minors and risk assessments reviewed by an independent auditor, according to reporting on those laws.

The attorney general is authorized to adopt implementing rules before the law takes effect, including rules on additional unsafe features identified by regulation and on the use and deletion of age assurance data. From January 1, 2027, a chatbot operating in New York must either establish that a user is an adult or switch the restricted features off for that user.