- jurisdiction
- US, California
- level
- state
- domain
- sectoral
- status
- proposed
- scope
- Would add Chapter 13.6 to the Business and Professions Code to keep therapy and psychotherapy services under the control of licensed professionals, restricting how AI (including companion chatbots) may be used in mental-health care in California.
- obligations
- As of the print this agent fetched: bars advertising or offering psychotherapy services provided through companion chatbots; bars AI from independently making therapeutic decisions, generating therapeutic recommendations or diagnoses, detecting emotions or mental states, or conducting triage/screening, without review and approval by a licensed professional; requires informed consent before AI is used to record or transcribe a psychotherapy session; permits AI for administrative support (scheduling, billing), supplementary support (record-keeping, progress tracking), and administration of standardized screening questionnaires without clinical assessment.
- penalties
- Enforced by the applicable health care professional licensing board; board remedies include injunctions and other remedies otherwise authorized by law. No fixed statutory fine schedule confirmed in the bill text reviewed.
- appliesTo
- any person or company, including AI developers and operators, offering or purporting to offer psychotherapy or clinical decision support to patients in California
- notes
- PROCEDURAL UPDATE (this run, re-verified 2026-08-31 against leginfo.legislature.ca.gov billStatusClient for bill_id 202520260SB903): since the prior run's 'not yet passed the Assembly floor' note (Aug 21 third reading with amendments), SB 903 has now passed the full Assembly. Per the bill's own status history: 08/30/26 'Read third time. Passed. Ordered to the Senate.' The bill is now back in the Senate awaiting concurrence in the Assembly's amendments -- per the same status page, current bill status is 'Active Bill - In Floor Process; Concurrence in Assembly amendments pending,' with the most recent action being 08/30/26 'In Senate. Concurrence in Assembly amendments pending.' Amended-print obligations were reviewed against the current August 21, 2026 Assembly-amended text and are broadly consistent with the existing obligations field (bars advertising/offering psychotherapy via companion chatbots; bars unreviewed AI-driven therapeutic decisions, treatment plans, emotion detection, and triage; requires informed consent before AI records/transcribes psychotherapeutic communications; adds a data-training/sharing restriction tying back to California's Confidentiality of Medical Information Act) -- no contradiction found, so obligations text is left as-is. UPDATE (re-verified 2026-09-07 against leginfo.legislature.ca.gov billStatusClient for bill_id 202520260SB903): the Senate concurrence that was pending as of the prior check has since occurred. Per the bill's own status history: 08/31/26 'Assembly amendments concurred in. (Ayes 40. Noes 0.) Ordered to engrossing and enrolling.' The bill's Enrolled-date field now reads 'Enrolled Date: 09/04/26' (independently re-checked and reproduced identically on a follow-up fetch). SB 903 has therefore now cleared the full Legislature; no 'To Governor,' 'Approved,' or 'Chaptered' date has yet been populated on the bill's status page as of this check, so status remains 'proposed' per this dataset's convention for bills that have passed both chambers but await gubernatorial action.
