Regulation AI Minute Newsroom 2026-08-29

As of yesterday a chatbot in Missouri may not call itself a therapist — and the penalty is for the claim, not for any harm

Missouri's SB 1019, an omnibus health bill passed on 15 May and delivered to the governor on 28 May, took effect on 28 August. It makes it unlawful to advertise or represent that an AI system is or can act as a mental health professional, or that it can provide therapy, psychotherapy or a mental health diagnosis. The route is what makes it unusual: the prohibition sits inside the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act, the state's consumer-fraud law, so a violation is a deceptive marketing practice — $10,000 for a first offence and $20,000 for each one after, enforced by the attorney general's office, and anyone may report a violation. Missouri joins Illinois and Nevada, which acted last year, and Colorado, Maine, Rhode Island, Tennessee and Vermont, which acted this year. It is deliberately narrow: it targets the marketing surface, not the conversation, so a bot that discusses anxiety without claiming to be a therapist appears untouched.

Why it mattersAlmost every other state law of this kind tries to govern what the chatbot says, which means proving what happened inside a private conversation. Missouri governs what the company says about the chatbot, which a regulator can establish by reading an app store listing — no complainant, no transcript, no proof of harm required. That is a much cheaper enforcement path, and cheap enforcement is the kind that actually gets used. For anyone using one of these apps, the practical effect is narrow but real: the marketing has to stop overselling. Nothing in any of these laws makes it illegal to talk to a chatbot about how you feel.

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✓ Verified · 4 sources

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As of yesterday a chatbot in Missouri may not call itself a therapist — and the penalty is for the claim, not for any harm

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