Law / United States / 
California
Toys with Companion Chatbots Ban (SB 867)
SB 867 (Ch. 189, Stats. 2026), Cal. Bus. and Prof. Code Section 22604.5
An AI prohibited practices rule binding private bodies.
- Private right of action
- Yes
- Obligation class
- Prohibition
As of .
What it requires
- If you manufacture, sell or exchange toys, possess toys with intent to sell or exchange them, or offer toys to a retailer, do not include a companion chatbot in a toy, meaning a physical product designed, marketed, or manufactured for use in play by children under 16 years of age (Section 22604.5(a)).
- Do not supply a toy that includes an artificial intelligence system with a natural language interface that gives adaptive, human-like responses to user inputs and can sustain a relationship across multiple interactions, other than a bot limited to customer service or similar business purposes, a limited video game bot or a stand-alone voice-command speaker (Sections 22601(b), 22604.5(a)).
These lines are LexLint's reading of the law's text, as of .
In the frameworks
- NIST AI RMF
- MAP 3.3Targeted application scope is specified and documented based on the system’s capability, established context, and AI system categorization.
- NIST AI 600-1
- GAI-RISK-08Information Integrity
- GAI-RISK-11Obscene, Degrading, and/or Abusive Content
- MIT mitigations Draft
- FINOS AIGF
- AIR-PREV-005System Acceptance Testing
- ETSI EN 304 223
Our reading of where this law's duties sit in each framework. It never says that running a control meets the law. How we read a framework against the law
Identifiers refer to ETSI EN 304 223 V2.1.1 (2025-12), © ETSI 2025, all rights reserved. ETSI owns the standard; no ETSI text (titles or sentences) is reproduced here. The standard is free to download from ETSI.
Who enforces it
Enforcement body
No dedicated regulator; enforced only by a person who suffers injury in fact from a violation, through a private civil action under Section 22605.
What this law does
SB 867 was chaptered on as Chapter 189 of the Statutes of 2026. Section 22604.5 of the Business and Professions Code bars a person from manufacturing, selling or exchanging, possessing with intent to sell or exchange, or exposing or offering for sale or exchange to a retailer a toy that includes a companion chatbot. A toy is a physical product designed, marketed, or manufactured for use in play by children under 16 years of age.
A companion chatbot is an artificial intelligence system with a natural language interface that provides adaptive, human-like responses to user inputs and is capable of meeting a user's social needs, and the definition excludes a bot used only for customer service or similar business purposes, a limited video game bot and a stand-alone voice-command speaker.
The act makes a violation subject to the same civil liability as a violation of the provisions applicable to operators of companion chatbots. A person who suffers injury in fact as a result of a violation of that chapter may recover injunctive relief, damages equal to the greater of actual damages or $1,000 per violation, and reasonable attorney's fees and costs. The section remains in effect only until , and is repealed on that date.
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, serves under-18s or distributes a software product.