California bans toys with AI companion chatbots for four years
SB 867, signed September 10, prohibits manufacturing or selling any toy built around a companion chatbot through January 1, 2031 -- with no compliance path through disclosures, filters, or parental controls.
Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 867 on September 10, 2026, part of a larger child-safety package, making California the first state to bar the sale of physical toys built around a companion chatbot rather than merely regulate how they operate. Authored by Senator Steve Padilla, the law states flatly that "no person shall manufacture, sell, or exchange, possess with intent to sell or exchange, or expose or offer for sale or exchange to any retailer any toy that includes a companion chatbot," covering any physical product designed, marketed, or manufactured for play by children under 16. The prohibition sunsets on January 1, 2031, when it is automatically repealed.
No compliance path, unlike the state's other chatbot law
California already regulates companion chatbots generally, through a 2025 law requiring disclosures, break reminders, and crisis-referral protocols. SB 867 doesn't extend that model to toys -- it removes the option. As Ballard Spahr attorneys Scott Humphreys and J. Matthew Thornton note, a toy containing a covered companion chatbot stays prohibited even after a manufacturer adds content filters, parental controls, or session limits; the only way out is redesigning the product so its functionality no longer meets the statutory definition. Violators face the same civil liability that already applies to companion-chatbot operators under state law, rather than a toy-specific penalty schedule.
Why toy makers, not just app makers, are now on the hook
The bill folds conversational AI into the state's existing product-safety framework for physical goods, meaning model selection, prompts, guardrails, memory settings, and safety testing now sit alongside the design-control and foreseeable-risk analysis that toy manufacturers already have to run under product liability law. That's a different enforcement lever than the disclosure-and-audit approach state legislatures have mostly used on chatbots so far, and it lands as a growing number of AI-enabled toys have reached the market aimed at exactly the under-16 audience the law now walls off entirely.