On May 27, 2026, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont signed Senate Bill 5 (“the Bill”) into law, creating a broad framework for artificial intelligence oversight in the state. The Bill reaches beyond any single category of AI use and touches consumer disclosures, employment tools, AI companions, synthetic media, workforce issues, state agency AI use, and privacy-related governance. The law is relevant not only to technology companies, but also to employers and businesses in Connecticut that use AI-enabled tools in their ordinary operations.
The Bill defines “artificial intelligence” as “any machine-based system that, for any explicit or implicit objective, infers from the inputs such system receives how to generate outputs, including, but not limited to, content, decisions, predictions or recommendations, that can influence physical or virtual environments.” That broad definition may capture a wide range of tools businesses already use, including systems for hiring, customer engagement, analytics, content generation, fraud detection, personalization, and internal productivity. The Bill is a reminder that AI governance cannot be limited to high-profile AI projects. It should also include vendor tools and embedded automated features that may already be operating across the business and that could constitute AI under the statute.
The employment provisions are especially notable. The Bill regulates “automated employment-related decision technology,” defined as technology that processes personal data and uses computation to generate an output, such as a prediction, recommendation, classification, ranking, or score, that is a substantial factor used to make or materially influence an employment-related decision. Employers using these systems should pay close attention to notice obligations before covered employment decisions are made. Required notices must address the purpose of the technology, the nature of the employment decision, the trade name of the technology, the categories and sources of personal data analyzed, how the data will be assessed, and contact information for the deployer. These requirements are likely to require coordination among legal, HR, procurement, and IT teams.
Senate Bill 5 also targets AI systems that interact directly with consumers. An “artificial intelligence companion” includes AI with a natural language interface that provides adaptive, human-like responses and can sustain a relationship across multiple interactions. Operators must generally provide disclosures so users understand they are communicating with an AI companion, not a human being. Operators must also implement protocols to detect and address user expressions indicating suicide, self-harm, or imminent physical violence, including referrals to appropriate mental health resources. In doing so, Connecticut joins other states such as California, Washington, and Iowa in regulating AI chatbots and companion platforms, particularly where the technology may influence vulnerable users such as minors or blur the line between human and automated interaction.
The law further addresses AI-generated media. Covered providers of certain generative AI systems must include provenance data in audio, image, or video content created or materially altered by those systems and must use reasonable methods to make that provenance data difficult to tamper with, remove, or disassociate from the content. This requirement fits within a broader trend toward transparency obligations for AI-generated media.
The Bill establishes staggered effective dates—many provisions take effect on October 1, 2026, although key employment deployer obligations apply to covered deployments on or after October 1, 2027. AI companion requirements take effect on January 1, 2027. Businesses operating in Connecticut should begin by inventorying AI tools, mapping where personal data is processed, reviewing vendor roles, and updating AI governance before the Bill’s staggered compliance dates arrive.