California Just Made It Easier to Get Past AI Customer Service Chatbots and Reach a Real Person

California customers stuck in automated customer service systems will have a new way to reach a live agent under a law signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that requires large companies to make a good-faith effort to connect them within 15 minutes.

Newsom signed Assembly Bill 1609, the Right to Human Customer Service Act, on September 28, 2026. The law applies to businesses with more than $500 million in annual gross revenue nationwide that provide goods or paid services to California customers.

Covered companies must provide a simple way to request a human customer service agent during regular business hours. If a business cannot connect the customer within 15 minutes despite a good-faith effort, it can instead offer a specific appointment with a person within one business day.

AB 1609 also targets the growing use of artificial intelligence in customer service. Companies must disclose when a customer service chatbot is artificially generated if a customer is likely to mistake it for a person, and businesses cannot represent an AI chatbot as human.

Customers must be able to ask for a person through commonly understood commands, prompts, menu selections, or verbal requests. Companies that provide telephone customer service must make a good-faith effort to limit individual hold periods after a customer reaches an agent to 15 minutes and cumulative hold or escalation times to one hour.

The law gives businesses flexibility in meeting those standards. Commercially reasonable and practicable measures designed to comply with the requirements satisfy its good-faith standard. Requests submitted through email, web contact forms, or voicemail fall outside the 15-minute connection requirement.

Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur, a Los Angeles Democrat who introduced the measure, has said his experience trying to obtain medication for his mother during the COVID-19 pandemic helped inspire the legislation. Zbur told lawmakers he spent more than four hours on hold before driving to the pharmacy while the call remained connected.

“Technology should make life easier, not block people from getting help,” Zbur told lawmakers while presenting the bill.

Business groups raised concerns as AB 1609 moved through the Legislature. The California Chamber of Commerce and other opponents argued earlier versions would impose high costs and rigid requirements across businesses with different customer service operations. Lawmakers amended the measure during the legislative process, adding flexibility to the final requirements.

Public prosecutors can bring actions to enforce the law. A covered business can face a civil penalty of up to $5,000 for an initial violation and up to $10,000 for each subsequent violation.

Consumers themselves do not receive a new right to sue solely over an alleged violation of AB 1609. The law expressly states that it creates no private right of action, leaving enforcement to public prosecutors.

Certain regulated utility services, consumer reporting agencies, and hospital communications involving health care services and related administrative functions are exempt. Emergencies and unforeseen circumstances outside a company's reasonable control can also excuse an inability to comply.

Companies can continue using AI and automated systems as the first point of customer service. AB 1609 requires covered businesses to give California customers a route from those systems to a real person when they ask for one.