Connecticut Lawmakers Pass Landmark Bill Banning AI Sex Chatbots for Minors Despite Heavy Republican Opposition

Connecticut has enacted what legal experts describe as the most restrictive AI companion chatbot regulation in the United States, barring providers from offering chatbots capable of erotic or sexually explicit interactions to any user under 18.

The state legislature passed Senate Bill 5, formally named the Connecticut Artificial Intelligence Responsibility and Transparency Act, with the House voting 131-17 on 1 May 2026 and the Senate passing it 32-4 on 21 April. Governor Ned Lamont, who previously threatened to veto earlier AI regulation efforts, confirmed through a spokesperson that he plans to sign it.

The legislation places Connecticut alongside a growing number of states taking independent action on artificial intelligence at a moment when the Trump administration has actively sought to discourage state-level regulation.

What SB5 Bans for Users Under 18

The chatbot provisions, effective 1 January 2027, hinge on a deliberately broad definition. Connecticut's law defines an 'AI companion' as any AI model that communicates with individuals in natural language and simulates human conversation through text, audio, or video. That definition is wider than most comparable laws in other states, which typically restrict coverage to chatbots that sustain long-term relationships or exhibit clearly human-like personas.

For users under 18, providers are prohibited from offering a chatbot if it is 'reasonably foreseeable' the system is capable of engaging in any romantic, erotic, or sexually explicit interaction. That prohibition sits alongside a list of seven other behaviours the bill bars for minors, including encouraging self-harm or suicidal ideation, offering unlicensed mental health services, steering users away from professional help, pushing illegal activity, prioritising validation over factual accuracy and using variable-ratio reward systems to maximise engagement time.

The law also requires all AI companion providers, regardless of the user's age, to include clear hourly notices that the bot is not human and to maintain a protocol for detecting expressions of suicidal intent or self-harm. According to a DLA Piper legal analysis published 7 May, the law's breadth may effectively function as a ban on offering any general-purpose AI chatbot to Connecticut residents under 18, given the difficulty of engineering large language models to reliably avoid prohibited outputs.

Enforcement sits with the state attorney general, who may seek civil penalties. Parents of minor aggrieved users may also file a private civil action within three years of a violation to recover actual and punitive damages, plus legal fees. Providers have a safe harbour if they 'reasonably determined' a user was at least 18 years old.

Years of Legislative Wrangling Before a Bipartisan Deal

SB5 is the third attempt by its lead author, Sen. James Maroney, D-Milford, to pass AI legislation in Connecticut. In each of the previous two sessions, bills cleared the Senate before collapsing under a veto threat from Lamont, who worried that broad regulation could drive businesses out of the state. This session, a deal between Lamont and Maroney unlocked the House, which had refused to bring AI legislation to a floor vote in 2025.

The version that ultimately passed is a 67-page omnibus bill built from several merged proposals, including provisions from Senate Bill 86 and House Bill 5037 that the governor had requested. A strike-all amendment introduced by Maroney shortly before the Senate vote replaced earlier versions of the legislation, prompting a lengthy chamber-by-chamber question-and-answer between Maroney and the ranking Republican on the General Law Committee, Sen. Paul Cicarella of North Haven.

Despite the headline's framing, Republican opposition in both chambers was limited. Several House Republicans voted in favour and spoke publicly in support. 'I cannot vote no and hope that ignoring AI and social media is going to make the state of Connecticut any better,' said Rep. Christie Carpino, R-Cromwell. Rep. Joe Hoxha, R-Bristol, added, 'This is way too important for the youth of this country, of our state, for the youth in all our districts.' The critics who did vote against the bill raised concerns about regulatory overreach and the difficulty of governing a technology that changes faster than legislation can keep pace with, not opposition to the bill's child-safety goals.

Federal Friction and the Race Among States

SB5 arrives as federal AI policy remains unsettled. The Trump administration has pushed back against state-level AI regulation, arguing that a single national standard is preferable to a patchwork of differing state laws. Connecticut lawmakers were aware of that pressure.

'There is no longer doubt that the nature of work, the nature of life, is going to change rapidly with the continued evolution of AI,' said Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, co-chair of the General Law Committee. 'This is about protecting people without stopping that innovation.'

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, who backed the bill publicly from the session's opening days, issued a statement after the House vote. 'Artificial intelligence is exploding everywhere, with potential for good intertwined with severe risks. Neither state nor federal law has kept pace with these developments, and today's vote is an important first step towards protecting Connecticut families.' Connecticut now joins New York, California, Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Iowa as states with laws directly addressing AI companion chatbots, becoming the seventh state to do so.

The California legislature had passed a comparable chatbot bill, AB1064, in 2024, but Governor Gavin Newsom vetoed it, warning that its prohibitions were so broad they would effectively ban children from using conversational bots in the state. Connecticut's SB5 carries a wider definition of 'AI companion' than the California bill Newsom rejected, which could invite similar legal challenges on First Amendment grounds once enforcement begins.

For an industry that has largely self-regulated until now, Connecticut's law signals that the window for voluntary compliance is narrowing.