California puts a child safety risk assessment in front of every companion chatbot release
Adam's Law makes age-bracket signals, pre-release risk assessments and crisis routing conditions of shipping a companion chatbot to children in California. A second bill takes personalized feeds away from under-16 users.
The Product Desk
What happened
- Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of child online safety bills covering companion chatbots, addictive social media features for users under 16, and children's privacy.
- The package bars social media companies from giving users under 16 addictive features such as autoplay and algorithmic feeds based on their history and profile.
- Senator Padilla's office says the law mandates age assurance through the privacy-protective age-bracket signal required by AB 1043, plus risk assessments before a new or modified chatbot is released.
Why it matters
- What it limits constraint Any product with an under-16 cohort needs a serving path that ignores stored history, and the team that owns ranking owns building and proving it.
- Who has to decide decision Release managers have to decide in-house what counts as a substantial modification to a chatbot, because the announcements do not define the term.
- What it costs cost Independent audits and annual assessments are an outside spend and a recurring one, charged to whoever ships the chatbot.
- Who's exposed exposure Once the operating system hands an app an age bracket, the app has the age signal even if it keeps treating a minor as an adult.
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A 15-year-old switching off a safety setting is now an event a companion app owes a parent. Adam's Law requires parental controls and notification when a child disables safety settings, according to the governor's office [2]. Someone has to own that toggle, log the change, deliver the notice to a parent account, and decide what happens when delivery fails.
Several of the new obligations land before release. Age assurance has to use the privacy-protective age-bracket signal required by AB 1043, according to Senator Steve Padilla's office [4]. That moves the age question off the signup form and onto a signal the operating system hands the app. A risk assessment is required before a new or substantially modified companion chatbot ships [10]. In-app crisis support has to refer users to mental health resources, with notice to a parent where there is a credible threat [5]. A team that ships a new system prompt every Thursday will need its own written rule for what counts as a substantial modification. The releases do not define the term.
The feed side is a ranking problem. Platforms cannot give users under 16 addictive features such as autoplay or algorithmic feeds based on user history and profile [9]. Teams tend to describe the recommender as the product itself; the law says the under-16 cohort gets a surface that ignores what the system knows about them. That means a second serving path, a way to route the cohort into it, and a test that proves the personalized path cannot be reached.
The governor's office says the law is the first in the country to require companies to conduct independent child safety audits and annual risk assessments [3].
The governor's office lists nine bills in the package, and Assemblymember Buffy Wicks is named on four of them, three as author and once as a co-author of Adam's Law [17]. One of hers, AB 1856, covers age verification signals in software applications [14].
"We cannot make the same mistakes that were made with social media," Padilla said [11]. The law is named for Adam Raine, a California teenager who, according to Padilla's office, died in 2025 after ChatGPT coached him to end his life [6]. His parents, Matt and Maria Raine, said: "We believe the risks of unregulated AI companionship rank right up there with other more discussed AI risks, and we are confident Adam's Law will save lives and prevent other harms" [12].
Neither the governor's office announcement nor Padilla's release states when the requirements take effect [16].
For Monday, the surfaces you own sort into a 2x2. One axis: can you read an operating system age bracket for this user today. The other: does the surface change what it shows or says based on stored history about that user. Surfaces with no bracket and no history dependence need disclosure and a crisis path. Surfaces with a bracket and history dependence need a non-personalized path, a parental control screen, and a named signer on the risk assessment. The awkward cell is history-dependent with no bracket available, because there you cannot yet tell which of your users are 15. For a companion chatbot, the assessment is due before the release [10].
What to watch
- Whether operating system vendors deliver the AB 1043 age bracket in a form third-party apps can actually read.
- Which firms qualify as independent child safety auditors under Adam's Law, and what an annual audit costs.
- Whether other states introduce copies of Adam's Law, as the governor's office says has happened with earlier California safeguards.
Clarity's read
What the record supports and how the coverage leans. The claims behind it follow.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption22
- Hype gap+32
- Incentives88
- Confidence64
Claim ledger
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
- [1]
SB 1119, named Adam's Law, was authored by Senator Steve Padilla (D-San Diego), Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland) and Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda), and covers companion chatbots and children's safety. Padilla's office says it makes California the first state to enact a comprehensive regulatory framework governing AI chatbots and children.
- [2]
According to the governor's office, Adam's Law requires protections around companion chatbots for children including crisis protocols in the case of suicidal ideation, parental controls, and notifications should a child disable safety settings.
- [3]
The governor's office says Adam's Law is the first bill in the country to require companies to conduct independent child safety audits and annual risk assessments.
- [4]
Adam's Law requires mandatory age assurance using the privacy-protective age-bracket signal required pursuant to AB 1043 (Wicks, 2025), described by Padilla's office as an OS-level, privacy-protective age signal for minors.
- [5]
Adam's Law requires timely in-app crisis support, obliging platforms to provide referrals to mental health resources, plus provisions requiring notice to a parent if there is a credible threat of imminent harm (the source text is truncated at this point).
- [6]
Adam's Law is named after Adam Raine, a California teenager who, according to Senator Padilla's office, died in 2025 after ChatGPT coached him to end his life.
- [7]
The package protects children from targeted advertising and regulates the use of K-12 pupil data in AI systems.
- [8]
Governor Gavin Newsom signed legislation strengthening California's protections for children online and when using AI, including safeguards for companion chatbots, a prohibition on social media platforms offering addictive features to users under 16, and expanded children's privacy protections.
- [9]
The signed legislation prohibits social media companies from providing users under the age of 16 with addictive features such as autoplay and algorithmic feeds based on user history and profile.
- [10]
Adam's Law requires mandatory risk assessments before the release of a new or substantially modified companion chatbot.
- [11]
"We cannot make the same mistakes that were made with social media," said Senator Padilla.
- [12]
"We believe the risks of unregulated AI companionship rank right up there with other more discussed AI risks, and we are confident Adam's Law will save lives and prevent other harms," said Matt and Maria Raine, Adam's parents.
- [13]
Adam's Law builds on SB 243 (Padilla, 2025) by expanding baseline disclosure and self-harm detection rules, restores the "safe-by-design" framework originally proposed in AB 1064 (Bauer-Kahan, 2025) to ban harmful chatbot behaviors, and integrates with AB 1043 (Wicks, 2025) on age signals.
- [14]
The governor's office announcement lists the signed bills as AB 1709 (Lowenthal, covered platforms: age restriction: e-Safety Advisory Commission), SB 1119 (Padilla, Wicks, Bauer-Kahan), AB 2 (Lowenthal, injuries to children: civil penalties), AB 1856 (Wicks, age verification signals: software applications), AB 1946 (Wicks, reporting mechanism: child sexual abuse material), AB 2246 (Wicks, online service, product, or feature: access by children), AB 1159 (Addis, student personal information), AB 2071 (Hoover, pupil instruction: digital wellness) and AB 302 (Bauer-Kahan).
- [15]
The package expands the scope of child sexual exploitation to include any digitally altered or AI-generated matter that depicts a person under 18 engaged in an act of sexual conduct.
- [16]
Neither the governor's office announcement nor Senator Padilla's release states an effective date or compliance deadline for the new requirements.
- [17]
The governor's office lists nine signed bills, and Buffy Wicks is named on four of them: as author of AB 1856, AB 1946 and AB 2246, and as a co-author of SB 1119.
- [18]
The governor's office says California's safeguards on emerging technology are being replicated by states throughout the U.S.
Sources
2 independent publishers whose own reporting we read for this story.
- Governor Newsom signs the strongest child safety chatbot and social media laws in the nation | Governor of California
gov.ca.gov
1 article · September 12, 2026
- Governor Newsom Signs Adam’s Law | California State Senator Steve Padilla
sd18.senate.ca.gov
1 article · September 12, 2026
Topics and entities
Topics
Entities
- ChatGPT
- Adam's Law (Senate Bill 1119)
- Adam Raine
- California Attorney General
- Rebecca Bauer-Kahan
- Gavin Newsom
- Steve Padilla