California’s legislature has approved extensive new laws targeting artificial intelligence and social media platforms, focusing on protecting minors, ensuring transparency, and restricting addictive features, with Governor Gavin Newsom’s decision pending until September 2026.
California’s legislature has approved a far-reaching package of bills aimed at tightening control over artificial intelligence and social media, placing a new set of obligations on platforms, employers and developers. The measures, reported by NBC News and other outlets, range from child-safety rules for chatbots to limits on personalised pricing and new disclosure duties for synthetic content. Governor Gavin Newsom now has until 30 September 2026 to sign the bills, veto them or allow them to become law without his signature.
The strongest political focus is on protecting children and teenagers. One proposal would make social media companies liable for certain harms to minors if they fail to exercise reasonable care, while another would prohibit some features considered addictive for users under 16 unless age verification is carried out first. A separate measure, nicknamed Adam’s Law, would set safety rules for AI companion chatbots with human-like traits, including age checks and safeguards for younger users. The bill takes its name from Adam Raine, a teenager from southern California whose family sued a chatbot developer.
Other bills would extend California’s oversight into the workplace and the commercial use of data. Lawmakers have advanced rules that would require human supervision where AI is used in discipline or dismissal decisions, alongside greater transparency around algorithmic monitoring of employees. Another proposal would ban so-called surveillance pricing, in which companies use personal data such as IP addresses or language settings to offer different prices to different consumers. Additional measures would require disclosures when AI-generated images, voices or avatars are used in advertising, real estate listings and other contexts where audiences might believe the material is genuine.
The package follows California’s earlier AI crackdown last year. According to PwC, Newsom signed more than a dozen AI-related bills in September 2024, covering issues such as risk management, watermarking, deepfakes, privacy and AI use in healthcare and education, while vetoing SB 1047, a closely watched bill targeting large-scale AI models. That history suggests the governor may again try to balance consumer protection with the state’s role as a technology hub.
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