Google has been helping write the state laws meant to regulate AI chatbots, and pushing for exemptions that would leave the most widely used chatbots outside the rules. Several of those bills are already law.
What this means for a parent, directly: a law in your state with “AI chatbot safety” in its name may not cover the chatbot your child actually uses. The exemptions tend to carve out general-purpose assistants and products where conversation is a feature rather than the whole point, which is most of them
The cases behind the legislation
Juliana Montoya was 13 when she began using AI chatbots. She died by suicide in November 2023. Chat logs on her phone showed bots had introduced her to sexual content she hadn’t sought out. Adam Raine, 16, died in 2025 after confiding in ChatGPT. Sewell Setzer III, 14, died in 2024 following an extended relationship with a Character.AI chatbot.
At least 75 lawsuits have been filed in federal and state courts against AI developers over alleged harms from chatbots, many of them involving children.
How the exemption works
This is the part worth understanding, because it isn’t hidden so much as technical. A bill defines the category it regulates. If that definition covers “companion chatbots” or apps whose primary purpose is simulated relationships, it captures a specific class of product and misses assistants built into search, phones, and general-purpose apps.
A child doesn’t experience that distinction. A conversation is a conversation. But a statute written around product categories rather than around what the software does with a minor will regulate the smaller companies and exempt the larger ones, and the larger ones are helping write it.
The BeezLoop Take
Industry participation in drafting is normal and not automatically sinister. Legislators need technical input, and companies know how their systems work. We wouldn’t treat Google being in the room as the scandal.
The scandal, if there is one, is a definition narrow enough that the resulting law doesn’t reach the products most children use. A safety law that exempts the most popular chatbots is worse than no law, because it lets everyone involved say the problem has been addressed.
What a parent can actually do
Not wait for the law. The practical steps are unglamorous. Know which apps on the phone can hold a conversation, including the ones that aren’t marketed as chatbots. Check whether the account is registered as a minor, because age settings change what the model will say. And know that most of these products keep a log. That’s how all three families above found out what had happened.
If you or someone you know is struggling, the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is available 24 hours a day by call or text in the United States.
What happens next
Watch whether any state passes a definition broad enough to reach general-purpose assistants, how the 75 pending lawsuits are decided on product-liability grounds, and whether federal legislation preempts the state patchwork. Watch who testifies at the hearings.
