The New York State Senate Committee on Internet & Technology, chaired by senator Kristen Gonzalez, advanced a package of legislation on February 25, 2026 to regulate Artificial Intelligence chatbots and broader digital risks. The committee prioritized bills targeting the use of Artificial Intelligence companions by children and the growing role of conversational systems in mental health contexts, framing them as urgent responses to mounting safety concerns. These measures were part of 11 bills that cleared the committee at its first meeting of the legislative session.
Bill S9051, sponsored by Gonzalez, would prohibit Artificial Intelligence chatbots from offering their services to minors when the technology contains certain unsafe features. The measure was developed with the Office of New York State Attorney General Letitia James and Common Sense Media, and it follows recent settlements in which Character.AI and Google resolved several lawsuits over chatbots allegedly used by minors in dangerous, and in some instances fatal, ways. Gonzalez also advanced S7263, which would prohibit chatbots from giving substantive responses, including information or advice, that can be mistaken for professional counseling, with the goal of ensuring that professional advice is provided only by licensed human professionals and not by artificial intelligence or chatbots.
The committee’s agenda extended beyond youth protections to broader Artificial Intelligence governance and digital security. S933 would amend state technology law to establish a chief artificial intelligence officer with defined powers and duties, while S934A would amend general business law to require notices on generative artificial intelligence systems. S936A would direct a state agency telework report. S1139 would require governmental entities to implement multifactor authentication for local and remote network access, and S1961A would establish the “Secure Our Data Act.” Additional bills included S3699, enacting the “Facial Recognition Technology Study Act,” and S5609, which would prohibit the use of biometric surveillance technology by law enforcement and create a biometric surveillance regulation task force. Rounding out the package, S6954A would require synthetic content creations system providers to include provenance data on certain synthetic content, and S6955A would establish the “Artificial Intelligence Training Data Transparency Act.” Gonzalez framed the package as an effort to ensure innovation does not come at the expense of safety, emphasizing transparency, accountability, and data security for New Yorkers using new technologies.
