AB 1979 Health care services: artificial intelligence

What happened

The September 1 enrolled AB 1979 would require covered health facilities, clinics and medical offices to take reasonable steps to preserve a licensed provider’s independent professional judgment when clinical decision-support output informs patient care. It would prohibit AI from independently performing a legally licensed clinical function or directing unlicensed personnel to perform it. Supervised trainees working toward licensure have an exception. Documentation and communication that do not involve professional judgment, and specified administrative systems, are outside the identified clinical requirements.

The proposal separately would classify businesses offering defined consumer health care chatbots for information management or diagnosis, treatment or management as providers under CMIA. The chatbot definition includes adaptive natural-language responses, health-service marketing and use of collected, generated or inferred health information. This privacy classification carries confidentiality and improper-use/disclosure rules but does not make the business a provider under other laws. At the September 5 cutoff, both the clinical and chatbot changes remained proposed.

Why it matters

Clinical deployment and consumer privacy assessments address different functions and cannot be replaced by one generic AI approval.

Sources

• AB 1979 Health care services: artificial intelligence, bill historyOfficial · California Legislature · 2026-09-04 · Source review 2026-09-10
• AB 1979 Health care services: artificial intelligence, current bill text (09/01/26 - Enrolled)Official · California Legislature · 2026-09-01 · Source review 2026-09-10