California AI Transparency Act: SB 942 as Amended by AB 853

Covered-provider duties operative August 2, 2026

Current Business and Professions Code Section 22757.1 defines a covered provider as a person that creates, codes, or otherwise produces a generative AI system with more than 1,000,000 monthly visitors or users that is publicly accessible within California. Applying each part requires product, control, audience, and accessibility evidence.

An ordinary user of a third-party AI tool is not automatically the provider of that tool. That does not establish that no other law applies to the user's content or business.

Detection and disclosure provisions

Section 22757.2 requires a covered provider to make a no-cost AI detection tool for specified image, video, and audio content created or altered by its system. The section addresses system-provenance output, personal-provenance limits, public access, uploads or URLs, an API, feedback, and retention restrictions; the exact text controls.

Section 22757.3 addresses a user option for manifest disclosures and provider-supplied latent disclosures in specified image, video, and audio content or combinations of those media. Do not expand those media-specific provisions into a claim that every AI-generated text item needs a label under the current California chapter.

AB 853 added roles with later dates

Beginning January 1, 2027, Section 22757.3.1 requires a defined large online platform that exceeded 2,000,000 unique monthly users during the preceding 12 months to address qualifying provenance detection, disclosure, inspection, and stripping. The definition and broadband and telecommunications exclusions should be reviewed in full.

Also beginning January 1, 2027, Section 22757.3.2 bars a defined GenAI hosting platform from knowingly making available a GenAI system that does not place disclosures under Section 22757.3. The hosting definition includes a California-resident download element that must be read in the current code. Section 22757.3.3 adds technically feasible latent-disclosure duties for specified capture devices first produced for sale in California on or after January 1, 2028; a person exclusively engaged in assembly is excluded from the capture-device-manufacturer definition.

Licensing, enforcement, and an exemption

The covered-provider provisions include third-party licensing duties and a 96-hour revocation rule when the stated knowledge and system-modification conditions are met. After that revocation, the affected third-party licensee must cease using the licensed system. Section 22757.4 sets a $5,000 civil penalty per violation and treats each day as a discrete violation for covered providers, large online platforms, and capture device manufacturers. The specified third-party-licensee cease-use violation has a separate injunctive-relief and fees provision.

Section 22757.5 excludes a product, service, website, or application that provides exclusively non-user-generated video game, television, streaming, movie, or interactive experiences. The word exclusively and the actual product facts matter.

Pending SB 1000 is not current law

An August 29, 2026 automated source check found that SB 1000 passed the Legislature with an urgency clause, the Senate concurred in Assembly amendments on August 27, and the bill was ordered to engrossing and enrolling. The latest official text was amended August 21. The official status still identified it as an active bill rather than chaptered law, so it must not be treated as current law. Substantive human review of the changed text remains overdue.

Before relying on a classification, verify the current codified chapter and the official SB 1000 status. Product architecture, audience measurements, and the statute can all change.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• California Business and Professions Code, Division 8, Chapter 25 — binding statute
• Pending SB 1000 official status and history — not current law
• AB 853 chaptered amendment — enacted amendment
• SB 942 chaptered text — enacted base act