NY Adopts AI Companion Law

Effective on November 5, 2025, New York State adopted a new law, General Business Law Article 47, dealing with Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) companions. (Shortly afterward, California adopted a similar law with some differences and other states have adopted other laws dealing with similar issues.) While this blog is not comprehensive or legal advice, as always, the law makes it unlawful for an “operator” to operate for or provide an “AI companion” unless it contains a protocol (which it spells out in slightly greater detail) for detecting and addressing suicidal ideation or expressions of self-harm from a user, with a notice to the user of crisis services. An “AI companion” is defined, in summary, to include a system using AI, generative AI and/or emotional recognition algorithms to simulate a sustained human or human-like relationship (meeting certain criteria) with a user. A “user” is defined to be someone who is using the system for personal reasons and so the law may not apply to commercial counterparts. Notice that the user is not communicating with a human must be given to the user at the beginning of the interaction and at least once every three hours. The attorney general has the right of enforcement, with a penalty of up to $15,000 per day. Unlike the California law, there is no private right of action. The fees, fines and penalties under the law must go into a suicide prevention fund. The N.Y. law is among the first comprehensive attempts to address this issue, but there is an increasing welter of differing state rules and it seems likely the attempts to regulate this new technology at the state level will continue.