Australia drafts duty of care rules covering AI chatbots

Australia's government released a draft Digital Duty of Care on September 8. It puts AI chatbots under the same obligations as a social media feed, per the government's My Feed, My Way announcement. Games, apps and messaging services get swept in too.

That matters for anyone running a conversational product into Australia. Miss the bar and the eSafety Commissioner can fine you up to $109.2 million.

The centerpiece is a provision called "My Feed, My Way." Users 16 and older choose whether their default feed carries algorithm-recommended content or only posts from accounts they follow, and platforms have to notify users that the choice exists. The draft's scope statement puts chatbots in the same bucket as feeds, without carving out an exception for products that don't scroll.

Providers also have to document their risk mitigations and show the mitigations keep working, the same requirement it sets for a recommendation algorithm. Consultation opened September 8, and Parliament takes the bill up in 2026, which leaves a runway for chatbot builders to figure out what the under-18 design obligations mean for a product built around conversation instead of a feed.