LexLint Beta

Law / California

California

AI law

California has the most developed state AI-transparency regime in the country: a bot-disclosure law (SB 1001) has been in force since 2019, with a pending but not yet enacted amendment (AB 410) that would strengthen its disclosure duty and add AI-related definitions, a content-labeling law (SB 942, as amended by AB 853) became operative on 2026-08-02 with duties still phasing in through 2028, and a training-data public-disclosure duty (AB 2013) took effect 2026-01-01. By contrast, California's two newer election-deepfake statutes have both lost in federal district court in the same case: AB 2839 was permanently enjoined and AB 2655 was struck down as preempted by Section 230, both on 2025-08-29, with the State's appeal pending before the Ninth Circuit as of this research (Babylon Bee, LLC v. Bonta, No. 25-6138, briefing complete 2026-03-11, no decision issued). A third, older election-deepfake statute, AB 730 as extended by AB 972, was not a party to that litigation and remains in force with its sunset now at 2027-01-01. This reviewer pass verified SB 942's codification directly against leginfo: Chapter 25 (commencing with Section 22757) is added to Division 8 of the Business and Professions Code, running through Section 22757.6, confirming the citation and correcting a truncated short_code; AB 2013's codification at Civil Code Sections 3110 and 3111 was likewise confirmed directly against leginfo.

23 instruments named 6 researched in detail As of 2026-08-14

Instruments

Each one links to its LexLint note, which carries what it requires and what it flags on.

AI training data

Generative AI Training Data Transparency Act (AB 2013)

Cal. Civ. Code Sections 3110 and 3111 In effect Effective 2026-01-01 official California Legislative Information (leginfo) chaptered bill text, read directly

A developer of a generative AI system made publicly available to Californians must post on its website, before making the system available and before any substantial modification, documentation describing the training data: a high-level summary of the datasets, their sources and owners, an approximate count and description of data points, whether the data includes copyrighted or personal information, and whether synthetic data generation was used. The posting duty reaches systems first made publicly available on or after 2022-01-01, though it did not attach until the 2026-01-01 operative date, now past. This corrects the derived citation on record, Civil Code Section 22756 et seq., which does not exist in Civil Code; reviewer verification against leginfo confirms the correct codification is Title 15.2 (commencing with Section 3110), Sections 3110 and 3111.

AI transparency

AB 2655, Defending Democracy from Deepfake Deception Act

Cal. Elec. Code Sections 20510 to 20520 Struck down Effective 2024-09-17 official California Legislative Information (leginfo) chaptered bill text, for the statute

As enacted, required large online platforms to remove or, in the alternative, label materially deceptive AI-generated content about a candidate or elections official within windows around an election. The same district judge (Mendez, E.D. Cal.) held this statute preempted by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and did not reach the First Amendment question, with final judgment entered 2025-08-29 alongside the AB 2839 ruling; because the holding is preemption-based rather than a discretionary injunction, struck_down is the more precise status than enjoined, though the practical enforcement posture is the same. The State's appeal is pending in the same Ninth Circuit docket as AB 2839 (No. 25-6138), briefing complete 2026-03-11, no decision issued as of this review (2026-08-14). This is litigation-aware status, not the in_effect status the legacy corpus recorded.

AB 2839, election materially deceptive deepfake disclaimer law

Cal. Elec. Code Section 20012 Enjoined Effective 2024-09-17 official California Legislative Information (leginfo) chaptered bill text, for the statute

As enacted, prohibited knowingly distributing, with actual malice, materially deceptive AI-generated election media within specified windows around an election, and required a conspicuous manipulation disclaimer for satire or parody content to qualify for that exemption. A federal district judge (Senior District Judge John A. Mendez, E.D. Cal.) granted summary judgment for the plaintiffs on First Amendment grounds and permanently enjoined enforcement on 2025-08-29; multiple independent secondary sources (Global Freedom of Expression / Columbia, EPIC's docket summary) consistently describe the injunction as running against enforcement against the named plaintiffs (Kohls, The Babylon Bee, Rumble, X Corp.), not as an explicit facial or statewide bar, though no source reviewed quoted the order's own injunctive-relief paragraph verbatim. The State's appeal to the Ninth Circuit (Babylon Bee, LLC v. Bonta, No. 25-6138, consolidated with the AB 2655 claims) had briefing complete as of 2026-03-11 with no decision issued as of this review (2026-08-14). This is litigation-aware status, not the in_effect status the legacy corpus recorded.

AB 730, as extended by AB 972, election deepfake disclosure law

Cal. Elec. Code Section 20010 In effect Effective 2020-01-01 official California Legislative Information (leginfo) chaptered bill text, for AB 730 and its AB 972 sunset extension

Prohibits, with actual malice, distributing materially deceptive audio or visual election media depicting a candidate within 60 days of an election, intending to injure the candidate's reputation or deceive a voter, unless the distributor discloses that the media has been manipulated. AB 972 extended the original 2023-01-01 sunset to 2027-01-01, confirmed against FindLaw's codified-statute history note showing the section added by Stats. 2019, c. 493 (AB 730) and amended by Stats. 2022, c. 745 (AB 972), so the disclosure-exemption structure remains in force. This statute was not a party to the litigation that enjoined AB 2839 or struck down AB 2655. The 2020-01-01 effective date follows the standard non-urgency operative date for a bill approved 2019-10-03, and is independently corroborated by multiple contemporaneous legal-press sources (Davis Wright Tremaine, Akin Gump) describing AB 730 as having taken effect January 1, 2020.

Bolstering Online Transparency Act (SB 1001)

Cal. Bus. and Prof. Code Sections 17940 to 17943 In effect Effective 2019-07-01 official California Legislative Information (leginfo) chaptered bill text

Makes it unlawful to use a bot to communicate with a person in California with intent to mislead them about the bot's artificial identity, for the purpose of deceiving them to incentivize a commercial transaction or influence a vote. A safe harbor applies where the bot operator clearly and conspicuously discloses that the user is interacting with a bot. No enacted amendment, repeal, or litigation affecting this statute was found; AB 410 (2025-2026 session), which would add AI-related definitions and tighten the disclosure duty to require upfront disclosure at first contact, was held under submission in the Senate Appropriations Committee as of 2025-08-29 and carried over to the 2026 session without a further enactment confirmed by this review.

California AI Transparency Act (SB 942, as amended by AB 853)

Cal. Bus. and Prof. Code Sections 22757 to 22757.6 In effect Effective 2026-08-02 official California Legislative Information (leginfo) chaptered bill text, both SB 942 and its AB 853 amendment

A covered provider of a generative AI system with more than 1,000,000 monthly California users must offer a manifest disclosure option (a visible AI-generated content label), embed a latent disclosure of machine-readable provenance data in content it creates, and provide a free public AI-content detection tool. AB 853 (2025) moved the operative date from 2026-01-01 to 2026-08-02, now past, and layered on later duties for large online platforms and GenAI hosting platforms effective 2027-01-01, and for capture device manufacturers effective 2028-01-01, neither yet in effect. Reviewer verification against leginfo confirms Chapter 25 (commencing with Section 22757) was added to Division 8 of the Business and Professions Code, with sections running 22757 through 22757.6 (definitions, detection tool, disclosure duties, penalties, exemptions, and operative date); the Section 22756 to 22756.6 range recorded on an earlier pass does not exist and was an error.

This summary covers the instruments LexLint has researched to a stage. Instruments named in the corpus but not yet researched are counted above and are not listed here. Every entry carries its own primary source on its note page. This is a research index, not legal advice.