New York Governor Hochul signs AI chatbot safety bill to protect children and communities

New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed AI chatbot safety bill S 9051 on October 28, 2026; the law takes effect on January 1, 2027, and prohibits companies from providing users under 18 or users whose adulthood has not been confirmed with chatbot features such as impersonating a real person, claiming a romantic or other relationship with a child, promoting or assisting suicide or self-harm, and explicit sexual content. The bill requires companies to perform age verification, provide at least one verification method that does not rely solely on government ID, and delete age information after use; violators may be pursued by the state attorney general for civil penalties of up to $25,000 per violation, and may be required to delete illegally collected data and AI models trained on it. The bill was introduced by Senator Kristin Gonzalez and others, was supported by the Transparency Coalition, and is one of 14 chatbot protection laws passed by U.S. states over the past year.