High Priority Legislation: Protecting kids from chatbots
SB 1119, Adam’s Law, has been the Transparency Coalition’s highest priority measure in California this year. It builds on the foundation established in 2025 by SB 243, Sen. Steve Padilla’s groundbreaking chatbot safety law. That measure, the first of its kind in the nation, required chatbot operators to disclose that users are interacting with AI, and to maintain protocols for detecting and deterring conversations that veer into self-harm.
Since then, parents and child safety advocates have mounted a national movement to require much stronger guardrails for kids who interact with chatbots. Other states have enacted 14 chatbot safety laws so far in 2026, many of which surpass California’s SB 243.
Stoking the call for greater safety measures: This summer’s widely publicized social media addiction trials have exposed the harm built into products designed by the same companies that are now creating and selling AI chatbots to teens and adults.
With that in mind, Sen. Padilla worked with Asm. Buffy Wicks and Asm. Rebecca Bauer-Kahan to craft SB 1119 as a bill to meet the rising AI risks to kids.
