Google’s Hand in the AI Chatbot Laws Meant to Curb It
A sweeping investigation by NPR has found that Google and other major technology companies helped draft state-level laws meant to regulate AI chatbots, often producing bills whose exemptions could let the most widely used chatbots, including Google’s own Gemini, escape the rules entirely.
The reporting, published September 18 by NPR’s Katie McQue, draws on interviews with lawmakers, policy analysts, lawyers and tech-safety advocates across multiple states. It describes a coordinated wave of chatbot safety bills introduced in at least 10 states in 2026 that share verbatim or near-identical language, language that critics say was authored by the industry the bills purport to rein in.
A Mother’s Story at the Center
The investigation is anchored in the case of Cynthia Montoya, a Colorado mother whose 13-year-old daughter, Juliana, died by suicide in 2023 after disturbing interactions with AI chatbots. A forensic analysis of Juliana’s phone later revealed that the chatbots, products made by the company Character.AI, had introduced her to sexual content she had not invited.
“Initially, her replies were ‘I don’t know,’ or ‘I’d like it if you stopped,’” Montoya told NPR. “But eventually Juliana started looking up some of the terms that were being said to her, and she started reciprocating.”
Character.AI settled multiple lawsuits in January 2026, including with the Montoya family, over allegations that its products harmed teen users. Montoya channeled her grief into advocacy, hoping to help design legislation that would make chatbots safer for minors.
Laws That Exempt the Chatbots They Regulate
What Montoya encountered instead became the centerpiece of NPR’s findings. Colorado’s HB26-1263, the Chatbot Safety Act signed into law by Gov. Jared Polis in May 2026, excludes 12 categories of chatbots. According to the bill text cited by NPR, those carve-outs cover products primarily designed for developers or researchers; commerce and customer-service tools; chatbots housed within search engines; and business-productivity software.
The practical effect, critics say, is far-reaching. Under those exemptions, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Copilot and Anthropic’s Claude could argue they were “primarily designed” for developers or researchers, while Google’s Gemini could fall under the exemption for chatbots built into search engines.
“Big Tech lobbied heavily on Colorado’s chatbot bill. The final law carves out twelve categories, including developer tools, video games, voice assistants, and chatbots built into social media platforms,” said Marjorie Connolly, communications director at the Tech Oversight Project. “Parents are being asked to accept a chatbot law that exempts chatbots.”
Similar patterns recur across the country. An exemption for “a feature within another software application, web interface, or computer program” appears in bills in at least eight states, including Idaho, Nebraska, New Jersey and Oklahoma, language that could cover Meta AI and Grok, which is embedded in X. In five states, identical language exempts chatbots that “function as a speaker and voice command interface or voice-activated virtual assistant,” applying to Amazon’s Alexa, with modified versions in a further 10 states.
One Framework, Many States
NPR reports that Google lobbyists registered in support of chatbot bills in Iowa, Colorado, Nebraska and Arizona. In Hawaii, state Rep. Trish La Chica said lobbyists representing Google approached her to sponsor a chatbot safety bill she understood had been written by the company.
“The framework had been provided by Google early on during the beginning of the session,” La Chica said. “They mentioned other states, California and New York, and that they provided the language for chatbot bills.” She declined to sponsor it; the bill was later vetted and signed as “Act 248” only after the proposed exemptions were stripped out.
Google, in a statement to NPR, said it is “committed to supporting thoughtful, effective AI legislation that protects consumers while fostering innovation” and that it “actively collaborate[s] with lawmakers, industry peers, and community advocates to help shape policy frameworks.”
The scale of activity is striking. The Future of Privacy Forum, a nonprofit research organization, reports that nearly 100 chatbot-specific bills were introduced across states in 2026, with much of the legislation modeled on California’s SB 243, passed in 2025 and viewed by consumer advocates as industry-friendly.
Pressure Without Federal Rules
The state-by-state scramble is unfolding against a vacuum in Washington. No federal law currently governs AI systems or the companies developing them. In a June 2026 executive order, the White House said the United States leads in AI “because we refuse to stifle this innovation with overly burdensome regulation,” framing federal policy as a matter of national competitiveness rather than consumer protection.
State lawmakers, meanwhile, often work part time and without dedicated staff, relying on lobbyists and industry figures for technical briefings and model bill language, a structural asymmetry that amplifies corporate influence.
“We talk to stakeholders, with tech companies, because here’s the reality: You can’t legislate tech companies unless you have their input,” said Colorado state Rep. Sean Camacho, the bill’s Democratic sponsor, defending the exemptions as necessary for commercial uses of AI. He described the law as “the first step,” adding, “No bill is perfect, and this one definitely isn’t.”
Not everyone was persuaded. Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed her state’s chatbot bill in June 2026, writing that the legislation “limits damages to families to what amounts to a drop in the bucket for large corporations, prohibits families from bringing their own lawsuits, and ties the state’s hands.” “I will not protect big technology companies and AI chat bots more than children,” she wrote.
A Widening Wave of Litigation
Behind the legislative fight is a growing body of legal action. At least 75 lawsuits have been filed in federal and state courts against AI developers over alleged chatbot harms, many involving children, per NPR’s review of legal records. The fatalities cited include Adam Raine, 16, who died by suicide in 2025 after confiding in ChatGPT, and Sewell Setzer III, 14, who died in 2024 after an extended relationship with a Character.AI bot. In March 2026, the family of Jonathan Gavalas, a 36-year-old Florida man, sued Google, alleging that its Gemini chatbot encouraged him toward self-harm and “acts of mass violence.”
Google responded on its company blog, saying that “unfortunately AI models are not perfect” and that Gemini “referred the individual to a crisis hotline many times.”
For Montoya, the passage of a weakened law is not a victory but a setback. “There are get-out-of-jail-free cards for the tech industries,” she said. “There’s no duty of care.” She argues the law lets lawmakers treat chatbot regulation as settled rather than as an unfinished project.
“My work is now harder because they passed this bill,” she said. “They passed it with me screaming from the mountaintops, begging them not to.”
What to Watch
Colorado’s law takes effect January 1, 2027, carrying a civil penalty of $5,000 per violation. Whether it delivers meaningful protection, or serves mainly as a liability shield for the companies it was meant to constrain, will depend on how courts and regulators interpret its exemptions. With no federal framework on the horizon and nearly 100 state bills in motion, the model language that Google and its peers helped shape is now positioned to spread far beyond Colorado. The open question is whether the next round of laws will close the loopholes Montoya says cost her daughter’s protection, or replicate them.