How California SB 243 (Companion Chatbots) applies to financial services organizations and the obligations to plan for.
Banks, lenders, insurers, broker-dealers, and fintech firms using AI for credit decisions, underwriting, fraud detection, and consumer interaction.
This law applies to financial services organizations to the extent their AI use falls within the law's scope (see the obligations below). Organizations operating in California should treat this law as part of the baseline regulatory obligations alongside any sector-specific federal rules.
Issue a clear and conspicuous notification that a companion chatbot is artificially generated and not human whenever a reasonable person would be misled into believing they are interacting with a human, and disclose that companion chatbots may not be suitable for some minors.
Deadline: At interaction
Maintain, and publish details of, a protocol that prevents a companion chatbot from producing suicidal ideation, suicide, or self-harm content, including referral to crisis service providers when a user expresses suicidal ideation or self-harm.
Deadline: Ongoing
Beginning July 1, 2027, report annually to the Office of Suicide Prevention the number of crisis-service referral notifications issued in the prior calendar year and the protocols used to detect, remove, and respond to suicidal ideation, without user identifiers.
Deadline: From July 1, 2027
This law applies to financial services organizations to the extent their AI use falls within the law's scope (see the obligations below). The law should be read with the source-derived obligations listed on this page and any sector-specific federal rules that apply to financial services workflows.
California SB 243 (Companion Chatbots) has been effective since January 1, 2026.
California SB 243 (Companion Chatbots) lists deployer as the role coverage for California. The actual duty depends on whether the organization develops, deploys, procures, or uses the covered AI system in the law's scope.
California SB 243 (Companion Chatbots) does not list a fixed maximum penalty in the Atlas record; remedies follow the law's enforcement framework and source sections.
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