Iowa AI chatbot law

The enrolled act establishes requirements for conversational AI services and civil penalties. One section says an operator shall not knowingly and intentionally program the service to make a statement that would lead a reasonable person to believe it is designed to provide professional psychology or behavioral health services that would require a license. The attorney general enforces the chapter. The text says it does not create a private right of action, and a model developer is not liable only because a third party used the model. Penalties are the greater of actual damages or $1,000 per violation, up to $500,000 per operator.

The applicability section says the act applies July 1, 2027. The bill-history page also lists an effective date of July 1, 2026. This page reports both, because both appear on official pages, and it does not collapse them into the duties are live. Counsel should say which date binds a particular obligation.

A law can exist and still have a later applicability date. Iowa's mental-health representation rule is also narrower than a full companion code. Do not describe SF 2417 as if it copied Georgia's hourly notices or romance limits.

These state laws are not copies of each other. A duty in one state may be missing in the next, and a signature date is not always the day the duties bind. Whether Congress will override some of them is a live debate, described on the federal AI preemption page. Until a federal statute does that, read the state text that applies to you.

Iowa's conversational AI law bars presenting the bot as licensed mental health care. The enrolled act dates applicability to July 1, 2027. HeyOtto is not a psychology service and does not claim the statute. A parent can read the chats. Distress brings crisis resources and a parent alert.

• Parents can read chats in the parent dashboard.
• Distress produces an alert and crisis resources, not an automatic call to emergency services.
• HeyOtto does not claim this statute is already satisfied.