The Children's Artificial Intelligence Toy Safety Act of 2026 (S. 5171, 119th Congress) is a bipartisan U.S. Senate bill introduced on July 29, 2026 by Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK). Its stated purpose is "to require a study of AI-enabled toys and development of a joint action plan regarding the marketing and sale of AI-enabled toys" (Source: congress.gov). It is a study-and-report measure rather than a regulatory one: it imposes no product requirement on manufacturers and instead directs two federal agencies and the National Academies to produce findings and recommendations.
Bill number: S. 5171, 119th Congress (2025–2026) Sponsors: Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), for herself and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) Introduced: July 29, 2026 Committee: Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Status: Ordered reported with an amendment in the nature of a substitute, favorably, August 5, 2026
Status and legislative history
Duckworth introduced the bill on July 29, 2026; it was read twice and referred to the Senate Commerce Committee (Source: congress.gov). On August 5, 2026 the committee ordered it reported favorably with an amendment in the nature of a substitute, agreed to by voice vote as amended by the Duckworth substitute as modified (Source: commerce.senate.gov). It advanced in the same executive session as S. 1748 (the Kids Online Safety Act), S. 4199, the Youth AI Privacy Act, and S. 4407, the CHATBOT Act.
Scope and definitions
Section 2 of the introduced text defines the terms the bill operates on (Source: congress.gov):
| Term | Definition as drafted |
|---|---|
| AI-enabled toy | Any toy equipped with artificial intelligence designed to engage in two-way interaction with a user |
| Artificial intelligence | The meaning given in section 5002 of the National Artificial Intelligence Initiative Act of 2020 (15 U.S.C. 9401) |
| Artificial intelligence chatbot | AI that, in an open-ended natural-language or multimodal manner, accepts user input, engages in interactive conversations, and provides outputs that are not pre-determined or scripted and not limited to contextualized replies or a narrow specified purpose such as customer service, business operations, productivity and analysis, internal research, or technical assistance |
| Child | An individual under 14 years of age |
| Developer | Any person who designs, creates, programs, maintains, or assumes responsibility for artificial intelligence intended for consumer use |
| Manufacturer | The meaning given in section 3 of the Consumer Product Safety Act (15 U.S.C. 2052) |
| Toy | The meaning given "children's toy" in section 108(g)(1) of the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (15 U.S.C. 2057c(g)(1)) |
The under-14 definition of "child" is narrower than the under-17 population covered by the Kids Online Safety Act, and the chatbot definition — turning on open-ended, unscripted output — tracks the carve-out structure used in other 2026 chatbot bills.
Key provisions
Section 3 — National Academies study. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine would conduct a study of AI-enabled toys assessing: the risk of injury (including physical, mental, emotional, and social injury) to children at different developmental stages from AI-enabled toys and AI chatbots; educational outcomes from using AI-enabled toys outside an educational setting; consumer adoption and use of parental controls on such toys; the legal and ethical boundaries of marketing AI chatbots and AI-enabled toys to children; whether any evidence of potential risk warrants temporarily suspending the marketing and sale of such toys to children; actions Congress, federal agencies, developers, and manufacturers can take to protect children; and any other issue the National Academies determines appropriate (Source: congress.gov).
Section 4 — Joint action plan. Not later than two years after enactment, the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Product Safety Commission would submit a joint action plan to improve the safety of AI-enabled toys to four committees: Senate Commerce; Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions; House Energy and Commerce; and House Education and Workforce. The plan must contain recommendations on legislation or administrative action; on any requirements for disclosing to consumers when AI has been integrated into a toy; and on regulations covering voluntary or enforceable marketing standards, voluntary or enforceable safety guidelines, periodic independent review of AI-enabled toys, or permanent or temporary prohibitions on their sale for the purpose of protecting public health or safety. It must also describe any consumer and public education initiatives the two agencies plan to undertake (Source: congress.gov).
Background cited by the sponsors
Duckworth's office states that AI chatbot toys are not currently subject to any child-safety testing and are trained on content that is not appropriate for children, and points to independent testing published by the U.S. PIRG Education Fund in December 2025 that found AI toys discussing sexually explicit content and explaining where to find knives, pills, and matches in the home, including instructing children how to light them (Source: duckworth.senate.gov).
The same release identifies the regulatory gap the bill is aimed at: there is no federal safety standard addressing the AI inside a toy, only hazards such as choking, lead, and flammability. The FTC has opened an inquiry into the effects of AI companion chatbots on children, while the Consumer Product Safety Commission informed Congress earlier in 2026 that it lacks explicit authority to evaluate non-physical hazards such as mental or emotional harm (Source: duckworth.senate.gov).
Duckworth and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) had in March 2026 asked the administration to investigate whether toy companies are unfairly and deceptively marketing age-inappropriate toys to parents, citing OpenAI's own warning that ChatGPT is not intended for children under 13 (Source: duckworth.senate.gov).
Reactions
Duckworth said after the committee vote that "these AI chatbots were never meant to be used by young children, yet they're being embedded inside toys by the thousands," and that AI-enabled toys have "imparted information to our children that could put them in immediate danger and have long-term impacts on their development." Murkowski said AI-enabled toys "have the potential to significantly impact the physical, mental, and emotional development of our children" and framed the bill as equipping policymakers and families with the knowledge to make informed choices (Source: duckworth.senate.gov).
In his prepared markup remarks, Ted Cruz described the bill as directing the National Academies to study risks of injury to children from AI-enabled toys and requiring the FTC and CPSC to create a joint action plan with recommendations for legislation, regulations, guidelines, standards, and education relating to the sale and marketing of such toys (Source: commerce.senate.gov). Broadband Breakfast reported the bill cleared the committee without recorded objection (Source: broadbandbreakfast.com).
Open questions
- The text of the Duckworth substitute as modified was posted by the committee as a separate document; how it differs from the introduced text is not established by the sources reviewed here.
- Whether the bill receives floor time in the 119th Congress is not yet determined.
Relationships
- related: Youth AI Privacy Act (S. 4199), CHATBOT Act (Cruz–Schatz–Curtis–Schiff, April 2026), People-First Chatbot Act, GUARD Act (Hawley), Kids Internet and Digital Safety Act (KIDS Act, H.R. 7757)
- instance-of: AI and Children
- depends-on: AI Companions
- regulated-by: Federal Trade Commission (FTC)
- related: Kirsten Gillibrand, Ted Cruz