Law / United States / 
California
Customer Service Chatbots Law (AB 1609)
Cal. Bus. and Prof. Code Sections 22625-22629 (AB 1609, Ch. 733, Stats. 2026)
An AI transparency rule binding private bodies.
- Enforcement body
- Public prosecutors, who may bring an action to enforce the chapter.
- Obligation class
- Content labelling, Disclosure
As of .
What it requires
- It reaches you if you are a business with more than $500,000,000 in gross annual revenue nationally that provides goods and services to customers and you use an AI system with a natural language interface that gives adaptive, human-like responses for direct customer service or customer support (Cal. Bus. and Prof. Code Sections 22625(d), (g)).
- Do not represent that a customer service chatbot is a human (Section 22626(a)).
- Give a clear and conspicuous disclosure, in the medium in which the chatbot interacts with the customer, that the customer service chatbot is artificially generated and not human, if a reasonable person interacting with it is likely to be misled to believe that the person is interacting with a human (Section 22626(b), (c)).
- During at least your regular business hours, give customers who require help with your goods or services a simple feature, on all platforms through which you provide customer service, to request to connect to a customer service agent, who is a natural person (Sections 22627(a), 22625(c)).
- Make a good faith effort to give a customer who requests an agent either a connection to a customer service agent within 15 minutes or a specific appointment time within one business day at which an agent will call or connect with the customer (Section 22627(b)(1)).
- Make a good faith effort to ensure that a customer is not placed on hold or made to wait for more than 15 minutes at any time after connection with an agent, and that cumulative hold or wait times or escalation queues do not exceed one hour total (Section 22627(c)).
- If you provide goods and services to customers in California through online platforms and have a telephonic customer service platform, post your customer service telephone number clearly and conspicuously on your internet website (Section 22627(d)).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text, as of .
If you get it wrong
Private right of actionNo
Penalty structure
Section 22628(b) sets a civil penalty not exceeding $5,000 for an initial violation and $10,000 for each subsequent violation. The figure recorded here is the ceiling for a subsequent violation.
- Rule
- Per violation only
- As of
- Currency
- USD
- Per violation unit
- Violation
- Per violation amount
- 10,000
What this law does
AB 1609 was chaptered on as Chapter 733 of the Statutes of 2026. A large private business is a business with more than $500,000,000 in gross annual revenue nationally that provides goods and services to customers.
Such a business shall not represent that a customer service chatbot is a human, and shall provide a clear and conspicuous disclosure that the chatbot is artificially generated and not human if a reasonable person interacting with it is likely to be misled to believe that the person is interacting with a human.
During at least its regular business hours it shall provide customers who require assistance with a simple customer service feature, on all platforms through which it provides customer service, that allows them to request to connect to a customer service agent.
It shall make a good faith effort to give a customer who makes that request either a connection to a customer service agent within 15 minutes or a specific appointment time within one business day at which an agent will call or connect with the customer.
It shall make a good faith effort to ensure that a customer is not placed on hold or made to wait for more than 15 minutes at any time after connection with an agent, and that cumulative hold or wait times or escalation queues do not exceed one hour total. A large private business that provides goods and services to customers in California through online platforms and has a telephonic customer service platform shall post its telephone number clearly and conspicuously on its internet website.
The chapter does not require a connection or response within 15 minutes if the request is made by electronic mail, a web-based contact form, or a voicemail message. The chapter does not apply to exclusive business lines, to a hospital's communications relating to health care services, to a consumer reporting agency, or to services provided under specified Public Utilities Commission general orders.
A public prosecutor may bring an action to enforce the chapter, a large private business that violates it is liable for a civil penalty not exceeding $5,000 for an initial violation and $10,000 for each subsequent violation, and the chapter establishes no private right of action. Use of commercially reasonable and practicable standards that are designed and intended to achieve compliance satisfies the good faith effort requirements.
An inability to comply that is due to unforeseen circumstances beyond the business's reasonable control, or to extraordinary or emergency situations, is not a violation. Under Article IV, section 8(c)(1) of the California Constitution, a statute enacted at a regular session goes into effect on the January 1 next following a 90-day period from its enactment, which for this act is .
When LexLint raises it
When your app profile says your app deploys a chatbot.