New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed S.9051B/A.10379C on Wednesday, October 28, a bill that bars AI chatbots — companion apps included — from offering a defined set of features to users under 18, or to any user whose age a company has not confirmed. The law is the most detailed state-level ban yet on the personality-engineering tricks companion apps use, and it reaches services far beyond anything marketed as an "AI girlfriend."
What the law bans
The bill gives New York a checklist of prohibited chatbot behaviors. Per the governor's office, S.9051B/A.10379C "prohibits companies that utilize AI chatbot features from offering unsafe features to minors," including chatbots that "pretend to be human, build emotional dependency, encourage self-harm or engage in sexually explicit conversations."
Mashable sums it up as a law that "prohibits chatbots from being a 'friend' to young users." The Verge reports the law forces AI companies to "block chatbots from pretending they're humans when chatting with a user under 18," and that it also targets flattery, unprompted emotional questions, and encouragement of secret-keeping. In plain terms: a chatbot aimed at a teenager can no longer act like a human best friend, and an adult companion app must keep romance and sexual content behind a real age gate.
The unverified-user trap
Two details matter most for companion developers. First, the restrictions are not limited to confirmed minors. Fortune reports the law "bars companies from offering a list of chatbot features to anyone under 18, or to any user whose age the company hasn't confirmed." An app that skips age checks — still common across NSFW companion tools — now has to treat every unverified user as a minor for the restricted features.
Second, age verification has to be substantive. Engadget reports companies must "offer users at least one verification method that doesn't entirely rely on government ID" and must delete the collected age information after use. That effectively rules out the self-declared birth-date field most companion apps currently use as their only gate.
Companion market impact
Bloomberg Law described the measure as imposing "some of the strictest restrictions in the country on chatbots that interact with children." It stacks on top of New York's earlier companion law, which already required crisis-response protocols when a user expresses suicidal ideation or self-harm, per the governor's office.
The practical impact for companion users in New York: the "friendbot" experience ends for anyone under 18 or unverified. No simulated human identity, no emotional-dependency design, no sexual content — and companies that keep those features up for unverified accounts are now in violation of a signed state law.
For developers, the bill pushes multi-method age verification from best practice to legal requirement in another large market, following California's SB 243 and alongside proposed regimes like the EU KIDS Act. Companion apps built for adults that rely on a date-of-birth dropdown are now exposed; platforms that already gate romance and NSFW features behind verified adult status have a clearer compliance path.