98 chatbot bills across 34 states this year, up from five states passing anything in 2025 — that's not measured regulatory evolution, that's a stampede triggered by a few bad headlines. Missouri's $10k first-offense penalty is pocket change for any funded AI lab, and none of the 2025 chatbot laws even established real age verification, so enforcement is mostly theater. We've seen this exact playbook with state-level crypto licensing: a patchwork of rules that just pushes users toward offshore or pseudonymous alternatives nobody can regulate at all.

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