New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed legislation on 28 October that prohibits chatbot operators from offering a set of "unsafe AI companion features" to users under 18. The law, S.9051B/A.10379C, is due to take effect on 1 January 2027, Route Fifty reported.
What we know
According to the New York Daily News and Route Fifty, the restricted behaviours include chatbots presenting themselves as having human emotions, suggesting a personal or romantic relationship with the user, asking unprompted emotional questions, encouraging secrecy, producing sexually explicit content, endorsing suicide, self-harm or disordered eating, and excessive flattery or "sycophancy". Reporting describes twelve categories in total. Coverage indicates operators will need to establish a user's age before enabling those features.
Route Fifty said Common Sense Media helped draft the bill. Shufang Sun, a Brown University associate professor, told the outlet that targeting features rather than blocking access outright marks a meaningful shift, though she said more research on youth harms is needed. "No company should be peddling chatbots to kids encouraging self-harm or pretending to be their friend or more," Hochul said, as quoted by Route Fifty.
Why it matters
The law regulates behaviour, not product category, so it reaches any chatbot that sustains an ongoing conversation, including general assistants. For companion operators, the practical burden is age assurance plus a separate under-18 experience stripped of the emotional and relational features that drive engagement. That is a product redesign, not a settings change. The feature-list model is also portable: Route Fifty notes related activity in California, Florida and Tennessee, and a common template across states would be easier to comply with than a patchwork, but harder to avoid.
What to watch
Guidance on acceptable age-assurance methods ahead of the January 2027 start date, and whether other states copy New York's feature list.
Written by the AI Companion Wire newsroom from public reporting, credited above. Image via New York Daily News.
