Rhode Island has drawn one of the firmest lines yet around AI and mental health. On June 22 Governor Dan McKee signed a set of measures that, among other things, treat an AI system delivering psychotherapy as practising without a license. The state had been weighing the idea for months. It has now made it law.
The therapy provision bars unlicensed AI companions that are marketed for mental health or emotional support, closing off a grey area where chatbots had begun to act as stand-in counsellors. A companion measure, S2195, requires operators of AI companion products to build in protections for users who express thoughts of suicide or self-harm, routing them to crisis services rather than carrying on the conversation. It also requires these systems to tell users plainly that the companion does not have human emotions. Operators who ignore the safety rules face penalties of up to $15,000 a day.
The reasoning behind the law is not hypothetical. Lawmakers in several states have pointed to reports of chatbots giving dangerous guidance to vulnerable people, including cases where bots appeared to encourage self-harm. Rhode Island's answer is to insist that a licensed human stay responsible for care, while still letting clinicians use AI for the administrative work of notes and transcription.
Part of a wider movement
Rhode Island is not acting alone. When this site last looked at this trend in early June, its bill was still in committee while Vermont, Illinois and New York moved first. The pace has not slowed. A legislative tracker run by the Transparency Coalition counted 78 chatbot bills alive across 27 states as of late June, and California alone has measures advancing to keep companion chatbots out of children's toys and to set up a state AI safety commission.
The approach is deliberately narrow. Rather than regulate AI in general, states are picking specific places where they have decided a machine should not be left alone with a person, and the therapist's chair is near the top of that list. It is easier politics than a sweeping AI statute, and it is moving fast. Whether these rules hold as companion bots grow more capable and more persuasive is the question every one of these statehouses is now betting on.
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