Governor Gavin Newsom signed a package of child online safety bills into California law on 10 September 2026. These are enacted statutes rather than proposals, which closes the legislative stage for the package. Two of the bills reach artificial intelligence products directly: Senate Bill 1119, titled Adam's Law, and Senate Bill 867, which addresses companion chatbots built into toys.
Senate Bill 1119 requires companion chatbot operators to run crisis protocols where a user displays suicidal ideation, to provide parental controls, and to commission independent child safety audits alongside annual risk assessments. Assembly Bill 1709 sets age restrictions for covered platforms and creates an e-Safety Advisory Commission. Assembly Bill 1856 establishes age verification signals for software applications, Assembly Bill 2246 restricts children's access to certain online services and products, and Assembly Bill 2 attaches civil penalties where a covered service injures a child.
Companion chatbot operators whose products are reachable by minors in California carry the audit and assessment duties themselves and cannot discharge them by pointing at an upstream model developer. Toy manufacturers shipping conversational characters come within Senate Bill 867. Social platforms serving Californian users must build age gates that answer to Assembly Bill 1709, and application distributors must carry the age verification signals set up by Assembly Bill 1856. Civil penalty exposure under Assembly Bill 2 runs to the operator of the service.
The signed package runs wider than chatbots. Assembly Bill 1946 sets a reporting mechanism for child sexual abuse material, Assembly Bill 302 bans addictive feeds in school communications, Assembly Bill 1159 protects student personal information and Senate Bill 1276 raises penalties for child sexual exploitation offences. Senate Bill 1119 places the audit duty on the operator without naming a body that accredits auditors, so the qualifying standard for an independent child safety audit will be settled in practice. The e-Safety Advisory Commission created by Assembly Bill 1709 will shape how the age restrictions are applied.
Licentium advises operators of conversational AI products, consumer platforms and connected consumer hardware on regulatory exposure across jurisdictions. Work we undertake includes mapping companion chatbot duties against product design, preparing independent child safety audit and annual risk assessment documentation, advising on age assurance architecture for platforms and application distributors, and assessing civil penalty exposure where a service is reachable by minors.