New York bars humanlike, relationship and sexual AI companion features for minors

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed S.9051B/A.10379C on October 28, the Senate record shows. The law adds an article to the General Business Law titled “Prohibition on unsafe AI companion features for minors.” It makes it unlawful for an operator to provide those features to a user in New York unless the user is not a known minor and the operator has used permitted methods to determine that.

The bill lists 12 kinds of unsafe features. They include outputs suggesting the AI is human, alive or has human emotions; outputs claiming a personal, professional or authority-figure relationship with the user; flattery or sycophancy; unprompted questions about the user’s emotions; using personal or health information from more than 12 hours earlier or an earlier session; encouraging secrecy or isolation; engagement tactics that override safety guardrails; and content that is or facilitates sexually explicit conduct or child sexual abuse material. In a statement quoted by IAPP, Hochul said minors will no longer have access to chatbots “that pretend to be their friends, boyfriends and girlfriends.”

Operators must offer more than one way to check age, including at least one that does not rely on government ID or lets users stay anonymous to the operator, and must delete age data after the check. Self-declaration counts only when a user says they are a minor. Customer service and narrow work tools are exempt.

Enforcement lies with the attorney general, who can seek injunctions, damages, disgorgement, deletion of unlawfully obtained data and models trained on it, and civil penalties of up to $25,000 per violation. The signed version contains no private right of action; an earlier draft did. The bill text says it takes effect January 1, 2027. The governor’s office says only “in the coming months,” and the Senate record notes an approval memo whose content we have not seen.

California and Colorado took a different route, as we described in our explainer on their companion rules. New York’s list is broader: for minors, it targets the companion relationship itself.