AI Frontier Institute

CHATBOT RESPONSE LIABILITY ACT

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Illinois SB3368, the Chatbot Response Liability Act (Section 1), introduced February 4, 2026 by Sen. Sue Rezin, establishes liability rules for operators of AI chatbots serving Illinois users. Under Section 10, a chatbot proprietor cannot disclaim liability when its chatbot—used as an alternative to a human representative or as the proprietor's agent—provides materially misleading, incorrect, contradictory, or harmful information that causes financial loss or other demonstrable harm; liability is avoided only if the proprietor corrects the information and substantially cures the harm within 30 days of notification. Section 15 extends non-disclaimable liability to bodily harm, including self-harm, caused to covered users or third parties. Section 20 requires proprietors to display clear, conspicuous, explicit notice—in a font no smaller than the largest text on the page—that users are interacting with an AI, not a human. Sections 25 and 30 impose specific duties on companion chatbot proprietors: they must use commercially reasonable and technically feasible methods to detect and prevent self-harm promotion, interrupt a user's access for at least 24 hours upon detecting self-harm ideation, and display suicide crisis contact information. For minor users, Section 30 requires halting access until verifiable parental consent is obtained and imposing a minimum 3-day suspension if self-harm ideation is detected; strict liability attaches for violations involving minor self-harm. Section 35 requires ongoing vulnerability discovery. Section 40 directs the Attorney General to adopt rules defining commercially reasonable and technically feasible compliance methods, weighing proprietor size, resources, and industry practices. Section 45 directs the Attorney General to adopt rules for verifiable parental consent methods. Section 50 requires that age-verification and parental-consent data be used solely for those purposes and deleted immediately after use. The Act takes effect one year after becoming law (Section 99).

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