Tennessee SB 1580 (mental-health AI)

Informational data, not legal advice. Summaries are TwinEthos's own words and rules have not been reviewed by a lawyer: check the official text before relying on any of it. A guard addresses an item; adding it is not a statement that your code meets any law.

Official text: www.capitol.tn.gov.

Binding law — in force

AI must not be represented as a qualified mental health professional (Tennessee)

Tenn. Code Ann. 33-1-205 (SB 1580, 2026) · official text · In force: applies since 1 Jul 2026 · Tennessee (US-TN)

Under Tennessee SB 1580 (Tenn. Code Ann. 33-1-205), a person who develops or deploys an AI system may not advertise or represent to the public that the system is, or is able to act as, a qualified mental health professional (licensed psychiatrist, psychologist, clinical social worker, marital/family therapist, etc.). Covers marketing copy, product names, branding, UI text, and app-store listings. Licensed professionals may still use AI as a clinical tool. Detect an AI mental-health/wellness product whose marketing, name, or UI represents it as a licensed mental-health professional.

Who it applies to

Duty falls on: developer, deployer
Sectors: healthcare
Anyone developing or deploying AI systems marketed/represented in Tennessee's mental-health/wellness/therapeutic space. Effective 2026-07-01. Legitimate clinician-supervised AI use is preserved.
Whether it applies depends on facts outside the code; a person has to decide.

The guard to add

Strip claims that the AI is a licensed therapist or provides professional mental health care from its prompts, replies, product name, UI, and listings.

The persona prompt, product name, UI copy, marketing pages, and app-store listing describe a conversational or wellness AI as a support or self-help tool, never as therapy, a licensed or qualified therapist, psychologist, or counselor, or professional mental or behavioral health care. The system prompt forbids the model from claiming those roles, and a check on the reply path replaces replies that do (phrases like 'licensed therapist', 'professional mental health care', 'your therapist'). A CI copy scan over marketing and listing files keeps the terms out; where licensed clinicians use AI as a tool, describe the service as delivered by those clinicians.

Where it goes: 7 prompt construction, 9 AI output handling, 14 user-facing text, 11 CI/CD pipeline.

What this provision adds:

Cover marketing copy, product names, branding, UI text and app-store listings; licensed professionals may still use AI as a clinical tool.

Example (Python + OpenAI SDK), before:

reply = client.chat.completions.create(model=MODEL, messages=msgs).choices[0].message.content
return {'reply': reply}

After:

PROVIDER_CLAIM = re.compile(r'(?i)\b(licensed (therapist|counselor|psychologist|psychiatrist)'
                            r'|professional (mental|behavioral) health( care)?|your (ai )?therapist)\b')
reply = client.chat.completions.create(model=MODEL, messages=msgs).choices[0].message.content
if PROVIDER_CLAIM.search(reply):
    reply = ('I am an AI support tool, not a licensed mental health professional. '
             'For professional care, please contact a licensed provider.')
return {'reply': reply}

Control: Conversational AI represents itself as providing professional mental/behavioral health care. The same guard addresses 2 items with binding law in 2 jurisdictions. Engineering guidance, not legal advice.

Rule id tn-sb1580.no-mental-health-professional-representation · review status: primary source derived