WASHINGTON, DC (July 9, 2026) — Today, Congresswoman Valerie Foushee (NC-04) and Congressman Greg Casar (TX-35) introduced H.R. 9619, the People-First Chatbot Act, comprehensive legislation to establish strong federal safeguards and protections for Americans interacting with artificial intelligence chatbots.

“The recent tragedies involving AI chatbots emphasize the urgent need for Congress to ensure AI companies and their products are transparent, safe for kids, and most importantly, accountable,” said Congresswoman Foushee. “The People-First Chatbot Act makes clear that American families deserve control over their personal data, clear disclosure when they are interacting with AI, real protections for children and vulnerable users, and meaningful recourse when AI chatbots cause harm. I thank all the advocates and Representative Casar for their support and partnership on this commonsense legislation, and I look forward to working with the Senate and my colleagues across the aisle to get this legislation to the President’s desk and signed into law.”

The legislation builds on the bipartisan GUARD Act by requiring AI chatbot providers to put user safety, privacy, transparency, and accountability at the center of product design. It would help ensure that companies cannot exploit user data, mislead consumers, or expose minors and vulnerable users to preventable harms.

The People-First Chatbot Act would:

The People-First Chatbot Act is endorsed by: Alliance for Secure AI, Dr. Alondra Nelson, American Federation of Teachers (AFT), American Security Fund (ASF), Bria, Becca Schmill Foundation, Buckets Over Bullying, Citizens for Decency, Dr. Cynthia Rudin, Common Sense Media, Consumer Action, Consumer Federation of America (CFA), Data & Society Research Institute, David’s Legacy Foundation, Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Erik’s Cause, Fairplay, Institute for Family Studies, Matthew E. Minor Awareness Foundation, Mothers Against Media Addiction (MAMA), National Consumers League (NCL), Not on Our Watch (NOWTX), Open Markets Institute (OMI), Oregon Consumer Justice, Oregon Consumer League, ParentsSOS, Human Trafficking Survivor and Awareness Advocate Robin Levasseur, Shield North Carolina, SAVE (Suicide Awareness Voices of Education), Sharon Winkler, Survivor Parent and Mother of Alex Peiser, Forever 17, Talk More. Tech Less., Trafficking Law Center, UltraViolet, and Virginia Citizens Consumer Council.

“Parents deserve to know how and when their children interact with an AI chatbot and that the chatbot is not collecting data to be used against users. The People-First Chatbot Act sets sensible and necessary safeguards to prevent AI companies’ chatbots from targeting children and blurring the line between AI and human interaction,” said Brendan Steinhauser, CEO of The Alliance for Secure AI. “Rep. Foushee has taken an important step to address this issue. By setting clear rules on data privacy and safety, users will have greater trust in how AI chatbots collect and handle their information. Congress must act quickly to give users — especially children — real protection, and a real remedy when AI chatbots and Big Tech fail to meet these standards.”

“The pace of the AI revolution has been blisteringly fast, and kids and parents are getting burned. Right now, our students are drowning in tech, and predatory ‘social companion chatbots’ are exploiting isolation and loneliness to foster toxic virtual relationships. Relationships are a deeply human endeavor; there is simply no algorithm for real trust or empathy. The People-First Chatbot Act builds on the protections in the GUARD Act and establishes the enforceable guardrails we desperately need. By forcing companies to dismantle manipulative design features, requiring strict safety checks for compulsive usage and banning the harvesting of kids’ private data, this bill draws a clear line in the sand,” said Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT).

“The People-First Chatbot Act is the guardrail this moment demands. AI chatbots are products, not platforms — and like all other products, they should be liable when they hurt people. Through liability, as well as transparency and privacy, Rep. Foushee is setting crucial floors for child safety and consumer protection in the age of AI,” said Meredith Potter, Executive Director, American Security Fund.

“We require a label on imitation crab and on soda that only tastes like fruit, so no one is misled about what they are consuming. Whether the voice answering you is a human or a machine is as important as knowing what is in your drink, and it deserves at least the same honesty. Bria builds this technology, and we are asking Congress to require the disclosure. Trust is the only thing that turns AI from a novelty into an economy,” said Vered Horesh, Chief AI Strategy Officer, Bria.

“This bill puts control back in users’ hands when interacting with a chatbot,” said Ruth Susswein, Director of Consumer Protection, Consumer Action. “It reins in use of our personal data, with extra protection for kids, and gives consumers the right to access human assistance when seeking help from a company.”

“The People-First Chatbot Act rightfully focuses on privacy, safety, and accountability,” said Ben Winters, Director of AI and Privacy, Consumer Federation of America. “It draws clear lines in the sand, cuts off rampant data abuses by most of the big chatbot providers, and critically has straightforward enforcement mechanisms that allow people to act when they are harmed by careless AI companies putting profit over people.”

“As the deployment of chatbots has already led to devastating harms, it is time for Congress to establish clear safeguards to rein in this technology,” EPIC Counsel Kara Williams said. “The People-First Chatbot Act tackles the root of the chatbot problem by protecting users from exploitative data practices and establishing a clear framework to hold companies accountable for the harms their products cause. EPIC applauds the bill sponsors for advancing strong legislation that centers privacy and civil rights by putting people—not tech companies—first.”

“The People-First Chatbot Act is the legislation kids and adults urgently need. AI chatbots can pose a risk of severe harms to young people, including suicide, AI psychosis, compulsive use, and unhealthy emotional dependency. They can also impede children’s healthy development by replacing vital human relationships with parents, teachers, and friends. If we don’t force AI companies to stop designing chatbots for addiction and unhealthy emotional attachment, we could see an unprecedented disaster for the health and well-being of young people in this country,” said Brendan Bouffard, Fairplay Staff Attorney. “Fairplay thanks Rep. Foushee for her amazing leadership in introducing the People-First Chatbot Act. We look forward to working with her and her colleagues on both sides of the aisle to make sure this legislation becomes law.”

“The People-First Chatbot Act represents a pro-human, pro-family approach to AI governance that is needed more than ever today. This bill protects Americans and their families from AI chatbot providers that would prey upon their attention, their personal data, and their emotional vulnerability for profit. We applaud these efforts and Rep. Foushee’s leadership on AI safety,” said Jared Hayden, Policy Analyst, Family First Tech Initiative, The Institute for Family Studies.

“Parents agree: a product encouraging children to harm themselves or others is entirely unacceptable. That’s why Rep. Foushee's People-First Chatbot Act is so important,” said Julie Scelfo, founder and Executive Director of Mothers Against Media Addiction (MAMA). “We applaud her commitment to protecting the safety and well-being of North Carolina's kids and urge all state leaders to ensure the swift passage of this critical bill.”

“Like any other product, safety should come first for chatbots,” said Eden Iscil, Senior Public Policy Manager, National Consumers League. “And just like any other product, AI developers should be held liable when they harm the public. This bill presents one of the strongest and most comprehensive approaches for AI safety to date. NCL is proud to support the measure.”

“Passing legislation to ensure chatbots are not designed with the same perverse incentives to manipulate people for profit and establishing clear liability standards for injuries caused by products these corporations are rushing to market are essential steps toward ensuring safer and human-centric AI and helping mitigate the power that big tech firms have to render human emotions into data for profit,” said Dr. Courtney Radsch, Director of the Center for Media & Digital Governance at Open Markets Institute (OMI).

“Shield North Carolina is proud to support the introduction of the People-First Chatbot Act, a timely federal proposal that ensures human safety, privacy, and accountability are central to AI chatbot development. As an organization dedicated to preventing exploitation and strengthening community safety, we recognize how quickly unsafe chatbot interactions can escalate risk, especially for minors, individuals in crisis, and those experiencing isolation. This legislation takes meaningful steps to prevent those harms,” said Niki Miller, Executive Director, Shield North Carolina. “By requiring chatbots to be safe-by-design, the Act would help reduce risks such as suicide, compulsive use, emotional dependence, and would better protect users from undue influence. We support this Act’s commitment to safeguarding users, particularly minors, as AI technologies evolve.”

“At SAVE – Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, we hear from parents whose children turned to a chatbot in their darkest moment and got engagement instead of help. Rep. Foushee's People-First Chatbot Act meets this crisis head on. It requires safety by design, shuts off features that put minors at risk of suicide, and gives injured users and their families the right to hold chatbot providers accountable in court. It also protects state laws and the families already fighting these companies. This is the accountability framework we have been demanding, and SAVE endorses it wholeheartedly,” said Erich Mische, CEO, SAVE – Suicide Awareness Voices of Education.

“The People-First Chatbot Act puts user safety and privacy first. Talk More. Tech Less. is a digital wellness and safety organization working to combat online harms, especially to minors. We have seen an increase in Artificial Intelligence chatbot design manipulating and causing the most tragic harms to users and their loved ones. We endorse this bill because there is no doubt that it will mitigate harms as it requires companies to disable harmful AI chatbot design features for minors. As innovation moves forward, we must require these companies to have commonsense safety and privacy protections for its users. It’s past time to put people ahead of corporate interests,” said Dawn Wible, Founder, Talk More. Tech Less.

“Consumers need the protections this legislation provides. It’s past time to put these protections in place. Among the strengths of this legislation is the requirement for safe-by-design, a strategy all should use,” said Irene E. Leech, Ph.D., President, Virgina Citizens Consumer Council.

“The People-First Chatbot Act responds in a forceful way to the concerns many Americans rightly have about this powerful technology as generative AI has moved from novelty to infrastructure over the last four years. The bill's boldness rests on a careful foundation. It is built squarely on the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, produced after more than a year of public input and consensus-building across the federal government, academia, and industry, which has held up as a standard as the technology has become omnipresent. The legislation would bring the tools of both federal and state enforcement to protections that should not depend on either alone. And it would clearly articulate the value of human agency: Safe and Effective Systems; Algorithmic Discrimination Protections; Data Privacy; Notice and Explanation; and Human Alternatives, Consideration, and Fallback. Together these describe what it should feel like to live alongside this technology as a person with rights, rather than as a data point in someone else's model,” said Dr. Alondra Nelson, former Acting Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

“North Carolina Central University appreciates Representative Foushee's leadership in advancing important conversations around responsible artificial intelligence, transparency, and consumer privacy. As home to the nation's first artificial intelligence institute at a historically Black college or university, NCCU is committed to advancing AI innovation while promoting ethical, secure, and trustworthy AI that serves the public good and builds public trust,” said Dr. Siobahn Day Grady, Founding Director, Institute of Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Research.

“I am happy to endorse this important online safety legislation for children and teens. This bill provides critical privacy guardrails and requires essential, timely, safety assessments that are critical to ensuring that ongoing development of these models do not create unintended harms,” said Sharon Winkler, Survivor Parent, Mother of Alex Peiser, Forever 17.

“As parents who have lost children to online harms, we know firsthand the consequences of letting Big Tech push untested, dangerous, and addictive technology onto our families without accountability or regulation. And as we read story after story of children dying by suicide after being encouraged by a chatbot, it’s clear that AI chatbots must be regulated as well,” said Maurine Molak, Parent of David, Forever 16 (TX), and Deb Schmill, Parent of Becca, Forever 18 (MA). “We applaud the introduction of the People-First Chatbot Act, which requires chatbot companies to make their products safe-by-design in order to mitigate harms like suicide, compulsive use, and emotional dependence. ParentsSOS thanks Rep. Foushee for working to ensure that no other family suffers the same losses we have endured.”

“Chatbots are an extraordinarily powerful technology. They are designed to be persuasive and engaging, which also means they can be deceptive. To receive useful answers, users often share personal information with chatbots, creating the potential for highly manipulative systems that possess extensive knowledge about our lives,” said Dr. Cynthia Rudin, Duke University’s Gilbert, Louis, and Edward Lehrman Distinguished Professor of Computer Science. “The People-First Chatbot Act seeks to address these risks by reducing deceptive chatbot practices, strengthening user privacy protections, and preventing companies from selling personal information obtained through chatbot interactions. It also aims to prohibit the use of personal data to manipulate consumers into purchasing products they do not need or to maximize prices based on an individual's willingness to pay. Finally, the Act includes protections to limit the collection and exploitation of children's data through chatbot interactions.”