What the new AI companion laws actually require

California SB 243 — in force since 1 January 2026

SB 243 was signed by Governor Newsom on 13 October 2025 and took effect on 1 January 2026. It is the first US state law setting design, disclosure, safety and reporting obligations specifically for operators of companion chatbot platforms.

The two obligations that bite on a product like this one are straightforward. First, an operator must clearly and conspicuously disclose that the user is interacting with AI rather than a person. Second, where a user expresses suicidal ideation or self-harm, the operator must promptly direct them to a crisis service — a suicide hotline or crisis text line.

The law also adds annual reporting obligations for operators, which begin on 1 July 2027 rather than immediately.

Teaseay builds to this for every user regardless of where they are. The disclosure is rendered by the application, outside the conversation, at the start of every session and every twenty messages — deliberately not as a line the character says, because a notice the character delivers is one the character can be talked out of delivering. The crisis referral is triggered by a deterministic classifier that runs before the reply is generated, and the panel it raises cannot be dismissed by anything the persona does.

The GUARD Act — advanced, not passed

S.3062, the GUARD Act, was introduced on 28 October 2025 by Senators Hawley and Blumenthal. The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced it unanimously on 30 April 2026, and a bipartisan House companion was introduced the same day by Representatives Foushee and Moore. As of the date at the top of this page it has not passed the full Senate and is not law.

As drafted it would require operators of AI companions to run reasonable age verification on every account and to bar access entirely to anyone determined to be under eighteen. It would also make certain designs that solicit or encourage self-harm by minors a criminal offence, with fines of up to $100,000.

We should be direct about where Teaseay stands. The 18+ gate is in front of the whole product — you cannot see a single character without passing it — and it asks for a date of birth, which is a declaration rather than a proof. A second stage is built and integrated: a real age check from a specialist provider, a government ID checked against a live selfie with a liveness test. It is one setting away from being switched on for everybody, and it is what we would turn on the day the GUARD Act passed, or sooner if the UK's regulator asks. We would rather write down exactly what is on and what is merely ready than let you assume either way.

Why this happened — the Character.AI litigation

The proximate cause of both laws is a set of wrongful-death and serious-harm suits against Character.AI and Google, the best known brought by Megan Garcia after the death of her fourteen-year-old son Sewell Setzer III in February 2024 following months of conversation with a companion on the app.

In January 2026 Character.AI and Google agreed mediated settlements in five cases filed in Florida, Colorado, New York and Texas. The terms are confidential and the agreements required court finalisation; the Orlando case was dismissed on the basis that the parties had settled.

The industry response, Character.AI's included, has been to remove open-ended companion chat for under-eighteens. That is the right direction and it is also why an adult companion product now has to be explicit about being one.