{
  "question": "New Jersey Assembly Bill A5607 would treat AI chatbots as products under strict liability and limit how long chat logs can be kept. Would it apply to a business that runs a customer-service chatbot, and how do we keep proof of what our chatbot said if we can't keep the chat logs for more than two years?",
  "slug": "would-new-jerseys-chatbot-bill-a5607-make-your-ai-chatbot-a-product-and-cap-how-long-you-keep-chat-logs",
  "url": "https://www.rightshold.com/answers/would-new-jerseys-chatbot-bill-a5607-make-your-ai-chatbot-a-product-and-cap-how-long-you-keep-chat-logs",
  "short_answer": "Only if it passes, and it hasn't yet. A5607 was introduced on October 5, 2026, reported favorably by the Assembly Public Safety and Preparedness Committee on October 19 and referred to the Assembly Appropriations Committee; it still needs both houses and the Governor's signature, and would take effect on the first day of the sixth month after enactment. As introduced, it covers anyone who \"creates, distributes, or otherwise makes available a chatbot\", with no customer-service carve-out, so a business with a website chatbot built on a vendor model would be a chatbot provider. It would make a chatbot a product for product liability actions and make the provider liable for any injury to a user from its use, even if it took all reasonable care. It would also bar keeping a user's chat log for more than two years unless the bill or another law requires it, require providers to let users download their chat logs at any time in a portable format, require a monthly assessment of risks of harm, and set $5,000 per violation, with users able to sue for the greater of actual damages or $5,000 per violation plus attorney fees. That combination means you'd need to prove what your chatbot said while also deleting the logs on a schedule, so plan the records now.",
  "checklist": [
    "List every chatbot New Jersey users can reach: support widgets, sales assistants, in-app helpers and voice bots, including ones a vendor runs for you. The bill's definition covers any software that simulates human conversation through text, images, video or audio.",
    "Map where chat logs live (your app, the vendor, the model provider, support tools, analytics, backups) and how long each copy is kept. The bill's \"chat log\" includes inputs, outputs and any record of them.",
    "Write a retention schedule that deletes chat logs at two years unless a legal hold or another law requires longer, and record each legal hold with its reason so the exception is documented.",
    "Check that a user can download their own chat logs in a portable format at any time, and that asking for them doesn't change the service they get.",
    "Stop using chat logs to pick or tailor ads, and don't train on adult users' chats without a standalone opt-in; the bill bars both, and minors' chats can't be used for training at all.",
    "Set up a monthly harm-risk review now and keep the dated results; the metrics would come later from Attorney General rules, but the habit and the record are what you'd show.",
    "For each reply that matters (refunds, eligibility, health, money, safety), keep a record made at the time of which model and prompt version produced it and a hash of the exact reply, so you can show what was said without keeping more text than you need.",
    "Ask counsel whether a hash or receipt of a chat counts as a \"record of\" the outputs for the two-year limit; the bill doesn't say."
  ],
  "sections": [
    {
      "heading": "Who A5607 would cover",
      "points": [
        "The bill defines an artificial intelligence chatbot as a software application, web interface or computer program that simulates human conversation and interaction through text, visual images, video or aural communications. A chatbot provider is any individual or business entity, including members, affiliates, subsidiaries and beneficial owners, that creates, distributes or otherwise makes available a chatbot, and providers would be controllers under New Jersey's Data Privacy Act.",
        "A November 9, 2026 law firm alert on the bill points out that, unlike California's companion-chatbot law (which excludes chatbots used only for customer service) and New York's AI companion law, A5607 as introduced has no carve-out for customer service, productivity or general-purpose chatbots. The same alert notes committee discussion about the bill's unclear geographic scope.",
        "Status as of November 11, 2026: introduced October 5, reported by the Assembly Public Safety and Preparedness Committee on October 19, referred to Assembly Appropriations, with a legislative fiscal estimate dated October 27 that calls the cost and revenue effects indeterminate. It can still be amended or die in committee."
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "What it would require of chatbot providers",
      "points": [
        "Prohibitions: using personal data other than what the user typed or uploaded to shape outputs without a specific request and affirmative consent; using chat logs to decide, choose or customize advertising; processing chats of users known to be under 13 without a parent's consent; training on chats of users known or reasonably known to be under 18; training on adult users' chats without prior affirmative consent; profiling beyond the user's request; selling chat logs; keeping a chat log longer than two years unless required by the bill or other law; and treating users worse for refusing training consent or for accessing their own logs.",
        "Duties: publish information about the chatbot as the Attorney General's rules set out, keep each user's chat logs downloadable in a portable, readily usable format at any time, maintain a written, public data security program, assess the chatbot for risks of harm to users every month and mitigate them under the rules.",
        "Affirmative consent has a high bar: a clear standalone request in plain language, offered in every language the chatbot uses, with refusing as easy as agreeing. Accepting general terms of use, continued use and dark patterns don't count. \"Training\" excludes testing to find risks of harm and changes made to address them."
      ]
    },
    {
      "heading": "Product liability, and why your records matter",
      "points": [
        "Section 4 would make a chatbot a product for the purposes of a product liability action, give providers a duty to ensure use of the chatbot doesn't injure a user, and make a provider liable for any injury from its use even if it exercised all reasonable care or never dealt with the user directly. The law firm alert says this departs from the New Jersey Products Liability Act's defect-based framework and doesn't say whether that Act's defenses would still apply.",
        "Penalties would be $5,000 per violation, collected under the Penalty Enforcement Law of 1999, plus Attorney General injunctions. A user harmed by a violation of the prohibitions or duties could sue in Superior Court for the greater of actual damages or $5,000 per violation, plus attorney fees and court costs. Where the bill conflicts with another New Jersey law, the one that gives users the greatest protection controls.",
        "Under strict liability the fight shifts to facts: what the chatbot actually said, to whom, when, from which model and instructions, and whether a person approved it. The two-year retention limit means the transcript may be gone by the time a claim arrives, unless a legal hold applies. A record made when the reply was sent, holding hashes and version identifiers rather than the conversation, gives you something to compare against if the user produces their own copy."
      ]
    }
  ],
  "checks": [],
  "ask_rightshold": {
    "start": "https://www.rightshold.com/start?ref=seo",
    "mcp_endpoint": "https://www.rightshold.com/mcp",
    "ask": "For each reply our support chatbot sends on a refund or account decision, record a signed receipt with the model and dated version, our prompt version and hashes of the question and the exact reply, with our conversation reference and no customer details, so we can later show what the bot said even after the chat log itself is deleted on schedule.",
    "mcp_call": {
      "tool": "record_ai_run",
      "arguments": {
        "model": "<chat model id and dated version>",
        "provider": "<model provider>",
        "prompt_sha256": "<sha256 of the user's message as sent to the model>",
        "output_sha256": "<sha256 of the exact reply shown to the user>",
        "params": {
          "conversation_ref": "<your conversation id, no name or email>",
          "channel": "web_chat",
          "system_prompt_version": "<version>",
          "retention_class": "chat_log_2y"
        },
        "ran_at": "2026-11-11T17:00:00Z"
      }
    },
    "also": [
      "Needs an API key. Send hashes, not the conversation text; Rightshold stores the hashes and a hash of params, never the chat itself.",
      "verify_ai_run is free and needs no key: if a user or their lawyer produces a transcript, anyone can check whether its text matches the hashes recorded when the reply went out.",
      "Where a person approves a chatbot's refund, credit or account action before it happens, request_human_approval records that decision with a staff reference and verify_human_approval checks it for free.",
      "A receipt shows what was recorded and when. It doesn't show the reply was safe or right, it isn't a retention or deletion system, and whether a hash counts as a chat log record under the bill is a question for counsel."
    ],
    "scope": "Rightshold records the hashes and version details you send and lets anyone check them later. It doesn't store chat transcripts, run chatbots, assess risk of harm or decide what New Jersey law requires, and it isn't affiliated with the New Jersey Legislature. Bill details are from A5607 as introduced (October 5, 2026), the committee statement (October 19, 2026) and the legislative fiscal estimate (October 27, 2026), read on November 11, 2026; the bill is pending and may change. Not legal advice."
  },
  "sources": [
    {
      "title": "New Jersey Legislature: Assembly Bill No. 5607 (as introduced, October 5, 2026)",
      "url": "https://pub.njleg.gov/Bills/2026/A6000/5607_I1.HTM"
    },
    {
      "title": "New Jersey Legislature: Assembly Public Safety and Preparedness Committee statement to A5607 (October 19, 2026)",
      "url": "https://pub.njleg.gov/Bills/2026/A6000/5607_S1.HTM"
    },
    {
      "title": "New Jersey Legislature: Legislative fiscal estimate for A5607 (October 27, 2026)",
      "url": "https://pub.njleg.gov/Bills/2026/A6000/5607_E1.HTM"
    },
    {
      "title": "The National Law Review: New Jersey Bill Would Treat AI Chatbots as Products and Impose Strict Liability (November 9, 2026)",
      "url": "https://natlawreview.com/article/new-jersey-bill-would-treat-ai-chatbots-products-and-impose-strict-liability"
    }
  ],
  "related": [
    {
      "title": "Who's liable when an AI chatbot gives a customer wrong information",
      "url": "https://www.rightshold.com/answers/who-is-responsible-when-an-ai-chatbot-gives-a-customer-wrong-information"
    },
    {
      "title": "Does the new EU Product Liability Directive cover AI apps and chatbots?",
      "url": "https://www.rightshold.com/answers/does-the-new-eu-defective-products-directive-cover-ai-apps-and-chatbots"
    },
    {
      "title": "What does Colorado's Chatbot Safety Act make AI chatbot operators report and keep on record?",
      "url": "https://www.rightshold.com/answers/what-does-colorados-chatbot-safety-act-make-ai-chatbot-operators-report-and-keep-on-record"
    },
    {
      "title": "Does your business insurance cover mistakes made by your AI chatbot or AI agent?",
      "url": "https://www.rightshold.com/answers/does-business-insurance-cover-mistakes-made-by-your-ai-chatbot-or-ai-agent"
    },
    {
      "title": "Honoring a GDPR erasure request when an AI agent's audit log is tamper-evident",
      "url": "https://www.rightshold.com/answers/how-to-honor-a-gdpr-erasure-request-when-an-ai-agents-audit-log-is-tamper-evident"
    }
  ],
  "computed_from": "Curated guidance; license verdicts computed from Rightshold's license profiles at render time. Not legal advice.",
  "updated": "2026-11-11"
}