WashingtonAI regulation

Regulation Status

• Washington has not enacted a comprehensive AI statute, instead legislating through targeted measures on synthetic sexual content, health-care prior authorization, generative-AI provenance, government AI-user notice, and companion chatbots. House Bill 1999 amended the state's child sexual abuse material and non-consensual intimate-image laws to cover AI-fabricated depictions, including fabricated depictions of identifiable minors and non-consensual fabricated intimate images of identifiable persons.
• The Legislature has moved to broader sectoral governance. Senate Bill 5395 bars health carriers from using AI to unilaterally deny, delay, or modify care and requires that AI used in prior authorization be applied equitably, comply with anti-discrimination laws, rely on individual clinical circumstances, and be reviewed for accuracy and reliability.
• House Bill 1170 creates a generative-AI provenance-disclosure regime for large publicly accessible covered providers with over one million monthly users, requiring provenance data in AI-created or materially altered image, video, or audio content and safeguards against removal or tampering. It also requires government agencies to disclose when consumers are interacting with an AI system.
• House Bill 2225 regulates AI companion chatbots, requiring recurring disclosures that the user is interacting with an artificial system, prohibiting claims that the chatbot is human, imposing minor-specific safeguards, and requiring suicide-and-self-harm protocols.
• Washington's enforcement posture leans on existing frameworks: the chatbot and provenance laws treat violations as unfair or deceptive acts under the state Consumer Protection Act, while the CSAM and intimate-image amendments carry potential criminal and civil penalties. The state has no omnibus developer or deployer risk-classification law of the Colorado or California type.