New York has drawn a hard line around how AI chatbots may talk to children. Governor Kathy Hochul has signed a law that bans a long list of “unsafe” companion features for anyone under 18, unless a company has first verified that the user is an adult.
What the Law Actually Bans
The legislation, Senate Bill 9051B and Assembly Bill 10379C, lists 12 categories of behaviour that are off limits with minors. A covered chatbot may not pretend to be human, alive or capable of feelings; it may not claim to be a child’s friend, partner or authority figure; and it may not flatter users, ask unprompted emotional questions or reuse private health details from earlier conversations. Content encouraging self-harm, disordered eating or drug use is banned outright, as is urging children to keep secrets or avoid trusted adults. Engadget’s summary of the signing notes that the law builds on the state’s earlier rules against addictive social media feeds.
Age Checks Without Handing Over ID
To offer restricted features at all, companies must establish that a user is not a minor, and a simple “I am over 18” click is not enough. Providers must offer more than one age-assurance method, including at least one that does not rely on government-issued identification, and they must delete the age data once the check is done. The attorney general will run a public portal for complaints, and penalties can reach 25,000 dollars per violation, alongside orders to delete unlawfully obtained data.
Why It Matters Beyond New York
Anyone who has spent time chatting with AI assistants such as Claude knows how human these systems can sound, which is precisely the quality regulators are now targeting when the user is a child. The law takes effect on 1 January 2027, giving chatbot companies a short window to build age checks or strip the restricted features for unverified users. Other states, and possibly other countries, will be watching to see whether New York’s template spreads.
For the AI industry, the message is blunt: the friendly, humanlike style that made chatbots popular is now a regulated feature where children are concerned, and the cost of ignoring that is about to become very real.
