Can Laws Keep Up With AI Therapists?

WSJ Tech News Briefing

The episode explores the evolving regulatory landscape for AI-driven mental health tools, specifically focusing on how state laws are restricting

Key takeaways

• Illinois law prohibits AI from being labeled as 'therapy,' forcing Slingshot AI to rebrand its 'Ash' bot as a mental health tool.
• Several states, including Nevada, Tennessee, and Colorado, have passed similar legislation limiting AI therapy services.

Main topics

• State-level AI therapy bans
• Rebranding of mental health chatbots

Notable quotes

The law doesn't provide us to say that this is a HIPAA-protected delivery because it's not a medical device or a medical person.

Conclusion

As AI mental health tools enter a 'Wild West' regulatory phase, the in

Transcript preview

Speaker 3 (0:00) This podcast is brought to you by HPE. Every business has a there. Automation, transformation, scale, maybe all of the above. The HPE Self-Driving Network gets you there with a network that's self-optimizing, self-healing, and self-protecting, and only continues to get smarter. Whether you run it or rely on it, it's a network that gets you there. Learn more about this self-driving network at hpe.com. slash networking. Speaker 1 (1:04) I think I was in Chicago and I had a, like, a three-hour layover. And so I decided, hey, this is a good time. Speaker 2 (1:12) That's Tyler Lord. He's 36 and he's been dealing with depression. And he says what it was a good time for was using an AI mental health chatbot called Ash. He figured he could get a quick session in on his layover. Speaker 1 (1:24) I probably couldn't talk in the airport, but I could, you know, type out whatever I needed. Speaker 2 (1:28) But it turns out he couldn't. Speaker 1 (1:30) As soon as I opened it, you get Speaker 2 (1:32) a Speaker 1 (1:32) pop-up saying, hey, the legislators in this state have banned AI therapy. So unfortunately, you cannot use it here. I was like, oh, man, that sucks. Speaker 2 (1:40) He did a quick Google. Yep, AI tools for therapy were restricted in Illinois. And for Lorde, who'd been considering moving to Chicago, not having Ash was a deal breaker. Speaker 1 (1:51) The fact that I wouldn't be able to use it if I was in a state like Illinois. That could have profound consequences. And maybe my dream job is in Chicago and I don't know it. And I'll never know it because I'll never move there. Because I like having the safety net that Ash provides. Even if it's not a requirement, it just makes dealing with those tough moments so much easier. And so it's like, why am I going to make life harder for me by moving to a place where I don't have it anymore? Speaker 2 (2:19) Actually, the amount of time that ash wasn't available in Illinois was pretty brief. We'll get into why it went away and why it came back a little later. But Illinois isn't the only state that's setting limits on AI therapy. Lawmakers are worried about these chatbots. So what do these laws do? And how are they changing the industry? Speaker 2 (2:41) I'm Alex Ocela for The Wall Street Journal. This is What's New Sunday, the third and final episode of The AI Therapist. So far, we've looked at why AI tools for mental health are catching on, the risks that may come with using them, and why the companies behind the chatbots say they're safe. You should go back and listen to those two episodes if you haven't yet. Today, we'll be talking about what the law says about how people should be using these tools. where some say it falls short, and the future of AI tools for mental health. Speaker 2 (3:19) Let's travel back in time for a second to July 2025. Okay, that was not a very long journey. It was only about a year ago. A startup called Slingshot AI was launching its AI chatbot, Ash. And Slingshot CEO Daniel Kahn was busy promoting it with a video. Speaker 1 (3:37) I'm happy to share that today we're announcing the launch of Ash, the first AI designed for therapy. Speaker 2 (3:43) We built a world-class... AI designed for therapy. That turned out to be a significant word choice. If you go to Ash's website today, the tagline says, AI designed for mental health. It doesn't say therapy. I asked Slingshot co-founder Neil Parikh about it. He said the company changed the wording on its website last fall. And they did it because of state laws that say something can't be called therapy unless a licensed professional is doing it. But, he says, that doesn't change Ash's mission. Speaker 7 (4:13) We don't call it. AI therapy, right? But when we think about the value proposition to people, it's similar, which is like, you have a problem, you can show up, and Ash is there to help you think through that. Speaker 2 (4:24) So Ash might be therapy in everything but name, but some companies embrace the label. On its website, one startup, Harmony, calls itself the first emotionally intelligent AI therapist. And still others say that actually, they're not therapy at all. For example, Talkspace. It's a publicly traded company that connects people to mental health providers online. Earlier this summer, it launched an AI tool called Tea. And John Cohen, the CEO of Talkspace, made it very clear to me, tea is not therapy. Speaker 4 (4:56) So it's a different population of people seeking a different type of conversation than a person who's actually seeking Talkspace for therapy. It's a different leap. It's a, I've recognized I have a problem, whatever it is, I really want professional help. These are people who haven't said they want professional help. They just want to talk to somebody. It's different. Speaker 2 (5:18) So why are some of these companies touchy about the word therapy? One big reason, as Slingshot told us, is that several U.S. states are passing laws