California Customer Service Chatbot Law

Overview

California AB 1609, titled Customer service chatbots, is Chapter 733 of the Statutes of 2026, enacted during the 2025–2026 legislative session. It adds Chapter 22.6.1, Sections 22625–22629, to Division 8 of the Business and Professions Code. The Governor approved the act, and it was filed with the Secretary of State, on September 28, 2026. The non-urgency statute takes effect on January 1, 2027 under California's constitutional rule for ordinary statutes. As of October 20, 2026, it is awaiting entry into force.

The chaptered act regulates customer-service chatbot representations and human assistance at qualifying large private businesses. It permits automation while requiring truthful identification, usable escalation features, and commercially reasonable efforts to achieve specified response and waiting times. Coverage depends on statutory definitions, not a general prohibition on automated support. Service-specific and entity-specific exemptions apply, certain uncontrollable compliance failures are excused, and obligations and remedies under other laws remain available.

Definitions

Section 22625 defines artificial intelligence as an engineered or machine-based system that varies in autonomy and can infer from inputs how to generate outputs influencing physical or virtual environments, for explicit or implicit objectives. A customer-service chatbot is an AI system with a natural-language interface providing adaptive, human-like responses and performing direct customer service or support relating to the sale or delivery of goods or services. Prospective and existing customer service are included. A customer-service agent is a natural person acting as an employee, contractor, or representative of the business, including someone providing technical assistance.

A large private business has more than $500 million in gross annual revenue nationally and provides goods and services to customers. A customer is a natural person residing in California, with residence determined by the customer's account address. Services require monetary consideration through a payment, subscription, fee, or recurring charge. Services or parts of services offering a free option with an opportunity to pay for the service or upgraded services later are excluded.

Online customer-service platforms are large private businesses primarily operating through public-facing websites, web applications, or digital applications, including a social network or publication; they may lack telephone support. Telephonic customer-service platforms are large private businesses providing telephone customer service to California customers. Regular business hours are customary customer-service hours, excluding ordinary closures and state or federal holidays, and include a 10-hour daily period over five days or eight hours daily over seven days. Exclusive business lines are employee-only or business-to-business channels. A qualifying hospital holds a license under Health and Safety Code Section 1250(a), (b), or (f).

Governance and Institutional Framework

The chapter relies on public enforcement rather than establishing a new AI regulator, licensing system, certification body, or deployment approval process. Section 22628(a) authorizes a public prosecutor to bring an enforcement action. The regulated party is the large private business, including when a human agent acts through a contractor or representative. Sections 22626 and 22627 establish disclosure and service duties; Section 22628 provides enforcement, the good-faith standard, and exceptions. Government permission is not required before using a covered chatbot.

Existing regulatory institutions remain relevant through express cross-references. Services subject to and compliant with California Public Utilities Commission General Order 133 or General Order 103-A, including any corrective action plan, are exempt. A business subject to Title 16, California Code of Regulations, Section 1707.2 may satisfy the initial connection or appointment requirement by returning a telephone call within one business hour. These targeted accommodations do not generally transfer enforcement authority or necessarily exempt every interaction conducted by a business.

Key Focus Areas

Section 22626(a) prohibits representing a customer-service chatbot as human. Sections 22626(b)–(c) separately require disclosure that the chatbot is artificially generated and not human when a reasonable person interacting with it is likely to be misled into believing the interaction is with a human. The disclosure must be clear and conspicuous and delivered in the same medium as the interaction. The false-representation prohibition is unconditional, while the affirmative disclosure obligation uses the reasonable-person trigger. No particular disclosure script or universal repetition schedule is prescribed.

Section 22627(a) requires a simple feature on all customer-service platforms enabling customers to request a human agent during at least regular business hours. Commonly understood commands, prompts, menu selections, and verbal requests may satisfy the requirement. Under Section 22627(b), businesses must make a good-faith effort to connect within 15 minutes or provide a specific appointment time within one business day at which an agent will call or connect with the customer. The special one-business-hour callback alternative applies to businesses subject to the specified pharmacy regulation.

Under Section 22627(c), after connection businesses must make a good-faith effort to prevent any hold or wait exceeding 15 minutes and cumulative holds, waits, or escalation queues exceeding one hour. These duties are not unconditional guarantees of immediate resolution. Section 22627(d) also requires businesses providing goods and services through online platforms and maintaining telephone customer service to publish their customer-service telephone number clearly and conspicuously on their website.

Implementation Framework

Implementation involves assessing national revenue, California account addresses, paid-service coverage, chatbot functionality, and applicable exemptions. Customer-facing scripts and interfaces should be reviewed for false suggestions of human identity and situations requiring disclosure. Each customer-service platform must support a simple agent-request feature during at least regular business hours. Multiple interface designs are permitted; no particular button or phrase is mandated. Staffing and escalation arrangements should support timely connection or a specific appointment, subject to the special regulatory callback alternative.

Section 22627(e) does not require connection or response within 15 minutes when the request or connection is through email, a web-based contact form, or voicemail. It also does not require a communication platform that was not otherwise available to customers as of January 1, 2027. These channel limitations should be distinguished from the broader requirements governing human access.

Section 22628(e) does not require a business without telephone customer service on January 1, 2027 to introduce it, provided its other communication methods allow prompt connection with an agent consistent with the section. Businesses already offering online and telephone customer service must nevertheless satisfy the website telephone-number publication duty. The January 1, 2027 references in Sections 22627(e)(2) and 22628(e) establish the baseline for existing channels as well as coinciding with the act's effective date.

Monitoring and Evaluation

The chapter does not mandate periodic regulatory reports, independent audits, model evaluations, certification, or a particular record-retention period. Section 22628(c) states that commercially reasonable and practicable standards designed and intended to achieve compliance satisfy Section 22627's good-faith requirements. Internal monitoring may therefore examine whether escalation features work, connection attempts meet the relevant period, appointments are specific, and post-connection waits remain within statutory targets. Tracking these measures is a practical compliance recommendation, not an additional express documentation duty. Disclosure and false-representation obligations remain distinct from the good-faith timing standard.

Section 22628(f) provides that a failure is not a violation when inability to comply results from unforeseen circumstances beyond the business's reasonable control or extraordinary or emergency situations. Examples include local or statewide emergencies, grid emergencies, public safety power shutoffs, and information-technology or telecommunications outages. The inability to comply must result from the qualifying circumstances; operational inconvenience alone does not suspend the duties. Evidence of an outage, its effects, and restoration efforts may help explain reliance on the exception, although no specific incident report is required.

Penalties, Liability, and Appeals

Section 22628 authorizes a public prosecutor to seek civil penalties not exceeding $5,000 for an initial violation and $10,000 for each subsequent violation. These are maximum amounts, not automatically imposed fixed penalties. The chapter does not define a per-conversation counting rule, state that each day of continuing noncompliance is a separate violation, or prescribe a mandatory cure period. Section 22628(d) expressly creates no private right of action, so a breach alone does not give a customer a standalone private claim under this chapter.

No special administrative appeal procedure, dedicated tribunal, or separate appeal deadline is established. Compliance protections include the commercially reasonable and practicable good-faith standard, qualifying inability-to-comply exceptions, and exclusions for specified services, channels, hospitals, and consumer reporting agencies. Their applicability depends on the conduct and circumstances. Section 22629 makes duties, remedies, and obligations cumulative with other law; the absence of a private action under this chapter does not eliminate an independently available remedy.

Relationship to Other Instruments

The Legislative Counsel's Digest identifies existing rules against misleading people about a bot's artificial identity to incentivize purchases or sales, as well as artificial-identity disclosures for companion chatbots. AB 1609 addresses customer-service chatbots at qualifying large private businesses through its own definitions and duties. Section 22627 also reaches customer-service platforms beyond chatbot interactions. Under Section 22629, compliance does not displace independently applicable consumer-protection, privacy, sectoral, or other chatbot obligations.

The utility exclusion applies to services subject to and compliant with General Order 133 or General Order 103-A and any corrective action plan. Exclusive business lines are excluded because they are solely for employees or business-to-business communications. The hospital exclusion applies to communications concerning healthcare provision, coordination, management, administration, payment, or operation, including clinical care, appointments, referrals, authorization, discharge, billing, and related functions. It is not a blanket exemption for every healthcare business. Section 22628(g)(4) separately excludes consumer reporting agencies as defined in the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act.

National/Federal Alignment

AB 1609 is a California statute, not a federal customer-service chatbot standard. The business-size threshold measures national gross annual revenue, while the customer definition uses California residence determined by account address. Nationally operating businesses must distinguish these tests rather than relying on California revenue alone. The consumer-reporting-agency exclusion incorporates the Fair Credit Reporting Act, 15 U.S.C. Section 1681 et seq., to identify an exempt category; it neither creates a federal chatbot obligation nor amends that statute.

State and federal holidays are recognized in the regular-business-hours definition, but the chapter establishes no federal enforcement partnership and directs no federal agency to issue implementing rules. Its utility accommodations refer to California Public Utilities Commission orders, not nationwide telecommunications requirements. Sections 22625–22629 contain no express federal-preemption provision, and the cumulative-obligations clause does not resolve every possible interaction with federal law. Independently applicable federal duties therefore require separate assessment.

Implementation Timeline

Compliance Checklist

Sources and References