California's New Chatbot Law Requires Independent Child-Safety Audits — What 'Adam's Law' and 12 Other Bills Do

The takeaway: California has passed what its governor calls the strongest chatbot and social media rules for children in the US. Governor Gavin Newsom signed 13 bills on 10 September. The headline measure is SB 1119, a companion-chatbot safety law named "Adam's Law" after Adam Raine. According to the governor's office, it's the first in the country to make companies run independent child-safety audits and annual risk assessments on these products.

Adam's Law: rules for companion chatbots

SB 1119, by Senator Steve Padilla with Assemblymembers Buffy Wicks and Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, strengthens earlier California rules on AI companion chatbots used by children. The governor's office says it requires:

• crisis protocols for cases of suicidal ideation;
• parental controls;
• notifications if a child turns off safety settings;
• independent child-safety audits and annual risk assessments, which the office describes as a first in the US.

A separate bill, SB 867 (also by Padilla), bars the manufacture and sale of toys containing companion chatbots until 1 January 2031, according to the Legislative Counsel's digest.

Addictive features banned for under-16s

AB 1709, by Assemblymember Josh Lowenthal, bars social media companies from giving users under 16 addictive features "such as autoplay and algorithmic feeds based on user history and profile", according to the governor's office. It also covers an e-Safety Advisory Commission.

AI-generated abuse imagery and children's data

• SB 1276 (Senator Susan Rubio) expands the legal definition of child sexual exploitation to include "any digitally altered or AI-generated matter" depicting a person under 18 in sexual conduct.
• The package also protects children from targeted advertising and regulates how K-12 pupil data is used in AI systems. The release lists AB 1159 on student personal information among the bills.
• AB 1856 covers age verification signals from apps, and AB 2246 covers children's access to online services.

The rest of the 13 deal with civil penalties for injuries to children (AB 2), a reporting mechanism for child sexual abuse material (AB 1946), digital wellness and computer science teaching in schools (AB 2071, AB 2298), school-issued devices (SB 1128), and addictive feeds in school communications about extracurricular activities (AB 302).

What Newsom said

"Our children's safety deserves to be at the center of every conversation about technology. As innovation moves faster our protections must keep pace," Newsom said. "Innovation comes with responsibility and protecting our children comes first."

It lands alongside AI audit rules

The day before, according to the same release, Newsom signed SB 813, which sets up a framework for independent organisations to check AI systems and models for compliance with state law, and AB 1405, which creates a state registry for AI auditors. In our view, together with the chatbot audit requirement, California is building an auditing layer around AI. It follows SB 53, the frontier-AI transparency law signed in 2025.

Why it matters beyond California

In our view, California's rules tend to travel: companies often build to the strictest large market rather than run separate products. The governor's office says its approach is "being replicated by states throughout the U.S." The details that decide whether the law has teeth, such as who counts as an independent auditor and what the audits must test, sit in the bill text rather than the announcement.