June 23, 2026, 21:24 GMT | Comment
Lawmakers eager to pass news laws reining in companion chatbots need empirical evidence to sort through policy debates that revolve around anecdotal reports and high-profile incidents, and the
US Federal Trade Commission's forthcoming report on the industry could provide it, Chairman Andrew Ferguson told MLex. The FTC 6(b) study into chatbots will also inform the agency's enforcement strategy around chatbots, but Ferguson signaled the agency would take a cautious approach first.
While efforts to block US states from enacting artificial intelligence legislation falter, the US Federal Trade Commission is trying a different strategy to sway lawmakers eager to rein in companion chatbots: empirical evidence.
The agency's forthcoming study — under Section 6(b) of the FTC Act — of the chatbot industry will not only influence the FTC’s enforcement strategy, Chairman Andrew Ferguson told MLex in a recent interview. It will also provide data for federal and state legislators as policy debates revolve primarily around anecdotal reports and high-profile incidents, Ferguson said.
“I hope that it's useful to Congress and to the state legislators who are trying to grapple with what to do with these things,” Ferguson said.
A patchwork of regulations around companion chatbots is already emerging in the US after parents and vulnerable adults filed lawsuits across the country accusing AI companies of putting profits over safety, including at least 20 wrongful death cases.
In April, the
US Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously marked up bipartisan legislation to keep children and teenagers off companion chatbots as concerns grow that they’re fueling a mental health crisis. Members acknowledged that the bill faces an uphill battle to final passage (see
here).
Meanwhile, ongoing efforts to block states from regulating AI continue to face pushback (see
here and
here), especially when it comes to regulating chatbots.
Instead of waiting for Congress to act, more than 35 states have introduced or enacted targeted restrictions on "companion chatbots" to prevent them from encouraging self-harm or sexual content. At least seven states have enacted specific restrictions on how chatbots interact with minors, including California, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Connecticut and Colorado, although Republicans and Democrats are choosing conflicting enforcement strategies (see
here).
Findings from the FTC’s chatbot study opened last September (see
here) could help lawmakers still deciding whether to impose broad, strict regulations on chatbots or to pursue a narrower strategy, and the agency is moving quickly because the industry is changing rapidly, Ferguson said.
“We picked the firms very selectively, because we didn't want this thing to last forever,” Ferguson said. “The last thing I want to do is put out a report about an industry that basically doesn't bear the shape that it bore when I launched the 6(b) investigation.”
It usually takes the FTC about 5 years to complete a 6(b) study, Ferguson said, but he expects to release the chatbot report “sometime next year.” AI companies are cooperating, and data is already arriving, he said.
The report will also inform the FTC’s enforcement strategy around chatbots, Ferguson said. But he also signaled that the agency would take a cautious approach with chatbots, much as it has toward the entire AI industry during the second Trump administration (see
here).
Ferguson praised Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier for announcing a wide-ranging civil lawsuit against
OpenAI and Chief Executive Sam Altman earlier this month (see
here).
“I have respect for that,” Ferguson said.
But federal regulators need to understand markets before filing lawsuits, and the FTC study will provide much of that information, Ferguson said.
“I think it's most important that we understand what it is and where it's going before I'm hitting them with enforcement actions,” Ferguson said. "I don't want to learn about the market through enforcement.”
Ferguson said he’ll follow a more traditional regulatory approach and apply existing FTC authorities — against deception, unfairness, and false advertising — rather than trying to create entirely new AI-specific legal doctrines to deal with chatbots.
He emphasized that the FTC's AI cases under his leadership have not involved novel legal theories. Instead the FTC has largely focused on AI deception cases, and backed away from broader efforts to police AI tools based on their potential misuse and conducting studies before pursuing novel enforcement theories.
The FTC reached a settlement with Arizona company Workado last year over allegedly false claims that its AI-content detector could distinguish text written by humans from AI-generated text (see
here).
In February, the FTC finalized an order against DoNotPay over its claims that it offered the “world's first robot lawyer” (see
here).
The agency has even rescinded enforcement actions against AI companies taken during the Biden administration. Last December, the FTC set aside a 2024 final consent order involving Rytr, an AI tool that was used to generate fake reviews, saying the agency’s complaint unduly burdened AI innovation (see
here). Ferguson had written a dissent opposing the Biden administration’s enforcement order (see
here).
That strategy won’t change even with a new controversial technology like chatbots, Ferguson said. Before pursing any enforcement against chatbots, the agency needs to understand how chatbots work, then determine consumer expectations, then bring enforcement cases based on established legal principles, he said.
“I think that what we will get from the companies will help us understand what consumer expectations are,” Ferguson said. “That will help us be able to judge the falsity about representations that the companies make about their products.”
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