New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a law on October 28 that bars AI chatbots from acting as friends, partners or confidants to anyone under 18. Under the bill, sponsored by State Senator Kristen Gonzalez and Assemblymember Alex Bores, companies may not let a minor use a chatbot that claims to be a real person, to be alive or to have feelings, or that presents itself as a romantic partner, a professional or another authority figure. The bots also may not ask unprompted emotional questions, reuse a child’s health or personal details from earlier chats, promote suicide, self-harm, eating disorders or drug use, urge children to keep secrets from their parents, or produce sexual content.

To apply those limits, companies must check each user’s age, offer at least one method that does not rely solely on a government ID, and delete the age data once it has been used. Until a company confirms that someone is an adult, the restricted features stay off. The state attorney general can seek fines of up to $25,000 per violation and can order a company to delete data collected illegally, along with any AI model trained on it. Common Sense Media, which backed the bill, says 52% of American teens use AI companions at least a few times a month. Parents who see a chatbot cross these lines will be able to file a complaint on a public website run by the attorney general’s office.