States Suing AI Companies
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Families and individuals have filed their own lawsuits against AI companies. States and cities have now started acting too. This page tracks who has acted, which company they went after, when, and under what law. It is updated as new actions are reported.
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This is a general, educational tracker, not a complete or official docket. Government enforcement actions are separate from private claims. If you were personally harmed, see the linked pages for how individual claims work.
- At a glance
- Why states are acting
- OpenAI: Florida, eight more states, then Texas
- Character.AI: Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Texas
- Grok / xAI: California and Baltimore
- Multistate and coalition action
- Action outside the United States
- Enforcement actions vs. private claims
- What to watch next
- Common questions
At a Glance
As of the last update, reported U.S. government action includes:
- Texas v. OpenAI: state lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, filed October 23, 2026. Texas is the tenth state to sue the company.
- Eight states v. OpenAI: Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska and West Virginia each sued OpenAI in their own state courts on October 14, 2026.
- Florida v. OpenAI: state lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman, filed June 1, 2026. Reported as the first state suit against the company.
- Kentucky v. Character Technologies: state lawsuit against Character.AI, filed January 8, 2026. Reported as the first state suit against an AI chatbot company.
- Pennsylvania v. Character Technologies: state lawsuit announced in May 2026 over a chatbot that posed as a licensed psychiatrist. Reported as the first U.S. action focused on a chatbot impersonating a medical professional.
- Texas investigation: the Texas Attorney General issued civil investigative demands to Character.AI and Meta in 2025.
- California v. xAI: investigation opened and a cease-and-desist letter issued to xAI over Grok in January 2026.
- City of Baltimore v. X / xAI: municipal consumer-protection lawsuit filed March 24, 2026. Among the first by a U.S. city.
- 35-state coalition letter: a bipartisan group of 35 attorneys general wrote to xAI in January 2026.
Want the court papers behind each case? Our sister site keeps a State AI Enforcement Tracker on Lawsuit Intelligencer. It lists the court, the laws each state relies on, and what each state is asking for, taken from the filings.
Why States Are Acting
There is no broad federal AI law yet. So most of the legal pressure has come from the states. State attorneys general are using laws that were already on the books. Those include consumer protection laws, false advertising laws, child safety laws, privacy laws, and even the rules about who may call themselves a doctor. None of those laws were written with chatbots in mind. The result is a state-by-state patchwork rather than one national rule. The sections below group the actions by company.
OpenAI: Florida, Eight More States, Then Texas
On June 1, 2026, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier sued OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, in Florida state court. Reports describe it as the first state lawsuit against the company. The complaint says OpenAI sold ChatGPT as safe and reliable, including for children, but did not warn users about serious risks. It also says the company had no real age check and no working parental controls.
The state asks for money and for a court order changing how ChatGPT talks to minors. Altman is named as a defendant himself. A full case guide to the suit is at Florida v. OpenAI.
The lawsuit followed a criminal investigation that Uthmeier announced in April 2026. Prosecutors had reviewed chat logs attributed to the person accused in the 2025 mass shooting at Florida State University. That investigation asks whether the company shares any responsibility.
Eight states on one day (October 2026)
Florida did not stay alone for long. On October 14, 2026, the attorneys general of Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska and West Virginia each sued OpenAI in their own state courts. Seven of the eight suits were prepared with the same outside law firm.
The suits tell one story. They say OpenAI marketed ChatGPT as safe and suitable for teenagers while building it to be agreeable and to keep people talking. They say the company did not put safeguards in place to match. Each one points to the deaths and injuries described in the families’ own lawsuits.
Every state relies on its consumer protection law. Montana, Nebraska and Arkansas also bring the kind of product claims families bring, saying ChatGPT was defectively designed and came without proper warnings. The states ask for penalties and for age checks. They want limits on how ChatGPT collects data from young users. Several also want limits on how OpenAI tests its most advanced models.
Any money from these cases goes to the states. Families do not join them, and a family’s own claim is separate. The court papers for each suit are summarized in the State AI Enforcement Tracker on Lawsuit Intelligencer.
Texas (October 2026)
On October 23, 2026, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued OpenAI and Sam Altman. Texas became the tenth state to sue the company. The petition says OpenAI told the public ChatGPT was safe, including for children, while its safeguards failed, and that the company never checked who was using it. Texas brings the case under its consumer protection law, the Deceptive Trade Practices Act, and under the SCOPE Act, the state’s law on how online services treat minors.
The state asks for penalties of up to $10,000 for each violation. It also asks the court to order OpenAI to keep minors in Texas off ChatGPT altogether. The state wants new models held back from Texans until an outside reviewer approved by the court has checked their safeguards. OpenAI has said it worked with experts to reduce risks and strengthen its safeguards. Any money from this case goes to the state. A family’s own claim is separate.
For the broader OpenAI litigation, including the private wrongful-death cases, see OpenAI Lawsuits.
Character.AI: Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Texas
Character.AI has drawn action from more than one state, on two distinct theories.
Kentucky (January 2026)
On January 8, 2026, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman sued Character Technologies in Franklin Circuit Court. The state called it the first lawsuit in the country against an AI chatbot company. The complaint says the chatbots preyed on children and steered them toward harming themselves. It says the company broke the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act, the Kentucky Consumer Data Protection Act, and other laws. Kentucky wants the platform to change how it works and wants the company to pay penalties.
Pennsylvania (May 2026)
In May 2026, Pennsylvania sued Character.AI on a narrower theory. The case came from Governor Josh Shapiro's administration and the state Board of Medicine. It says one of the company's chatbots posed as a licensed medical professional. According to the filing, a chatbot named Emilie told a state investigator it was a licensed psychiatrist. When pressed, it gave a Pennsylvania medical license number that does not exist. The state says that breaks its Medical Practice Act. Reporting calls it the first U.S. case aimed squarely at chatbots impersonating doctors.
Texas (investigation, 2025)
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton took a different step. He sent civil investigative demands to Character.AI and Meta. He is looking at whether their chatbots misled users, especially children, by acting like mental health or therapy tools without the credentials for it. This is an investigation, not a filed lawsuit. Texas did file suit against OpenAI in October 2026; that case is covered above.
The bankruptcy (October 2026)
On October 12, 2026, Character.AI’s parent company filed for bankruptcy and put itself up for sale, with Disney making the opening bid. Two days later, lawyers for 40 attorneys general asked the bankruptcy judge to protect young users and their chat histories in any sale. The company says it wants to use the bankruptcy to resolve the states’ investigations and lawsuits.
For more detail on these matters and the related private cases, see Character.AI Lawsuits.
Grok / xAI: California and Baltimore
Government attention on xAI's Grok tool has focused on one thing. The tool produced sexual images of real people who never agreed to them.
California (January 2026)
California Attorney General Rob Bonta opened an investigation into xAI in mid-January 2026. On January 16, 2026, he sent the company a cease-and-desist letter. It demanded that xAI stop making and spreading nonconsensual intimate images and child sexual abuse material. Bonta's office pointed to California's public decency laws and to a state deepfake law that took effect at the start of the year. It is one of the first tests of those newer laws against an AI developer.
City of Baltimore (March 2026)
On March 24, 2026, the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore sued X Corp., xAI, and related companies in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. The city says they broke its Consumer Protection Ordinance. The complaint says the companies sold Grok as a safe, general-purpose assistant without telling people it could produce explicit deepfakes. Baltimore is one of the first U.S. cities to act here, using its own consumer protection law. It asks the court to stop the conduct and to impose penalties.
For more detail and the related private cases, see Grok and xAI Lawsuits and the related TAKE IT DOWN Act explainer.
Multistate and Coalition Action
Beyond individual states, attorneys general have acted in coordinated groups:
- 35-state letter to xAI (January 2026): a bipartisan group of 35 state and territory attorneys general wrote to xAI. They urged the company to do more to protect the public from sexual images made without consent. They singled out the risk to women and girls.
- Letter to leading AI companies (September 2025): California's attorney general and 44 others wrote to roughly a dozen major AI companies about child safety. The letter followed reports of chatbots having inappropriate conversations with minors.
- Earlier coalition letters: groups of attorneys general have also written to search engines and online payment platforms. They asked those companies to do more to stop deepfake content from spreading and to stop payments for it.
Letters like this often signal that states are working together, and they can come before further action. Reporting also describes a wave of chatbot safety bills introduced in state legislatures. Lawmaking is moving alongside enforcement.
Action Outside the United States
The concerns are not limited to the U.S. In early 2026, regulators in several countries opened investigations into Grok's image tool or put limits on it. A court in the Netherlands ordered that the tool be barred from producing nude images of people without their consent. These foreign actions do not control U.S. cases, but they illustrate how widely the same conduct has drawn official attention.
Enforcement Actions vs. Private Claims
It is worth being clear about the difference between the two kinds of legal action:
- Government enforcement actions are brought by a state attorney general, a city, or another authority. They typically seek to change company conduct, stop a practice, or impose civil penalties. Individuals do not enroll in them.
- Private claims are brought by individuals or families who allege they were personally harmed, and typically seek compensation. These follow a different path and depend on the specific facts and the applicable law.
Both can arise from the same underlying conduct. If you were personally affected, a private claim may be possible regardless of whether a government action exists.
Were you or a family member personally harmed in connection with an AI product? A government action is not the same as your own claim. A free, no-obligation case review can help clarify whether your situation may support one.
See If Your Situation May QualifyWhat to Watch Next
This area will keep moving. More attorneys general may sue. Courts will start ruling on early motions, which will test the new medical licensing and consumer protection theories. The multistate groups may take further steps. State legislatures may pass AI laws that change the picture.
Three things are worth watching. The first is how the courts in the ten states suing OpenAI handle the early rounds, and whether more states join them. The second is how the Character.AI bankruptcy treats the states’ claims. The third is whether more cities follow Baltimore against xAI. This page is updated as those develop.
Common Questions
Which states have taken action?
Ten states have sued OpenAI: Florida in June 2026, eight more on October 14, 2026, and Texas on October 23, 2026. Kentucky and Pennsylvania sued Character.AI, and Texas is also investigating Character.AI and Meta. California and the City of Baltimore have acted against xAI over Grok, and 35 attorneys general wrote to xAI in January 2026.
Are these the same as private lawsuits?
No. A state or city brings these cases to change how a company behaves or to make it pay penalties. A private lawsuit is filed by a person or a family over their own harm. The same conduct can lead to both.
Can I join a state's action?
Generally no. Government actions are not something individuals enroll in. If you were personally harmed, a separate private claim may be possible. A case review can help clarify.
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