Tennessee AI Mental-Health Representation Prohibition (SB 1580 / Public Chapter 647; Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-205): AI Compliance Requirements
Tennessee SB 1580, enacted as Public Chapter No. 647 (passed March 16, 2026; approved by Governor Bill Lee April 1, 2026; effective July 1, 2026 and therefore IN FORCE), adds Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-205. The operative rule is one sentence: "A person who develops or deploys an artificial intelligence system shall not advertise or represent to the public that such system is or is able to act as a qualified mental health professional." It is a prohibition on holding the system out as a clinician — NOT a disclosure mandate: the act imposes no duty to label a chatbot as AI, no per-conversation notice, and no consent, audit, or record-keeping obligation. "Artificial intelligence" is defined in § 33-1-205(c) as "models and systems capable of performing functions generally associated with human intelligence, including reasoning and learning." Because § 33-1-205 sits in Title 33, the enumerated Title 33 definition of "qualified mental health professional" (§ 33-1-101) supplies the scope. A violation is a violation of the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act of 1977 and an unfair or deceptive act or practice affecting trade or commerce; PC 647 § 2 also adds the offense to the TCPA per-se list at § 47-18-104(b). Notwithstanding the TCPA's general civil penalty limits, a violation carries a civil penalty of five thousand dollars ($5,000) per violation.
Summary of publicly-available regulatory text as of 2026-08-25. Verify against current official sources before relying on this for compliance decisions. Not legal advice.
Key Facts
July 1, 2026
Civil penalty of $5,000 per violation (Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-205(b), expressly displacing the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act's general civil penalty limits). Because the conduct is made a TCPA violation and is listed at § 47-18-104(b) as a per-se unfair or deceptive act, the TCPA's remedial machinery — including the private right of action at § 47-18-109 and its attorney-fee provision — is available; PC 647 itself creates no separate private cause of action and sets no cure period.
What Your Business Must Do
2 compliance requirements identified. Critical requirements carry the highest risk of enforcement action.
No Holding Out an AI System as a Qualified Mental Health Professional
CriticalDo not advertise or represent to the public that an AI system you develop or deploy is, or is able to act as, a qualified mental health professional. Liability reaches BOTH developers and deployers, so an employer running a third-party wellness chatbot is exposed on its own marketing and interface copy, not only the vendor. "Qualified mental health professional" is the enumerated Title 33 term (Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-101): psychiatrist; physician with psychiatric expertise; psychologist with health service provider designation; psychological examiner or senior psychological examiner; licensed master's social worker with two years of mental health experience or licensed clinical social worker; marital and family therapist; nurse with a master's degree in nursing functioning as a psychiatric nurse; or professional counselor (plus mental-health experience with children where the service recipients are children). Scrub product names, taglines, app-store copy, onboarding screens, persona names and avatar credentials of any claim that the system holds one of those roles. NOTE — what the statute does NOT require: there is no duty to disclose that the system is AI, no per-conversation notice, no consent capture, and no mandated audit or record-keeping. A compliant product may still deliver mental-health content; it simply may not claim clinician status.
Deadline: July 1, 2026
Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-205(a) (added by 2026 Tenn. Pub. Ch. 647, § 1; SB 1580/HB 1470); "artificial intelligence" defined at § 33-1-205(c); "qualified mental health professional" defined at § 33-1-101; enforcement hooks at § 33-1-205(b) and § 47-18-104(b) (added by Pub. Ch. 647, § 2).Claims Inventory Across Developed and Deployed Mental-Health AI
High PriorityDERIVED CONTROL — § 33-1-205 mandates no audit; this is the practical means of proving the prohibition is met. Inventory every AI tool your organisation develops or deploys that touches mental health, stress, anxiety, depression, or behavioural health, including employee-wellness programs, HR chatbots and customer-facing health tools. For each, review the public-facing claim surface — product and persona naming, marketing pages, app-store listings, interface labels, system prompts that assert a professional role, and terms of service — against the enumerated roles in Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-101. Because liability attaches to deployers as well as developers, licensees of third-party tools should also secure contractual representations that vendor-supplied copy and model personas make no qualified-mental-health-professional claim, since the deploying business answers for what its users see.
Deadline: July 1, 2026
Derived from Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-205(a) (2026 Tenn. Pub. Ch. 647, § 1) read with the "qualified mental health professional" definition at § 33-1-101; penalty basis § 33-1-205(b) and § 47-18-104(b).Who Does This Apply To?
Applies to any person — no industry, size, revenue or data-volume threshold — who develops or deploys an artificial intelligence system and advertises or represents it to the public as being, or being able to act as, a qualified mental health professional (Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-205(a), in force July 1, 2026). "Artificial intelligence" is defined at § 33-1-205(c) as models and systems capable of performing functions generally associated with human intelligence, including reasoning and learning. The protected role is the enumerated Title 33 term at § 33-1-101, covering psychiatrists, physicians with psychiatric expertise, psychologists with health service provider designation, psychological examiners and senior psychological examiners, licensed master's social workers with two years of mental health experience or licensed clinical social workers, marital and family therapists, master's-level nurses functioning as psychiatric nurses, and professional counselors. OUT OF SCOPE, stated explicitly because the prior version of this entry asserted the opposite: the act imposes no AI-disclosure duty, no per-conversation notice, no consent requirement, no audit or record-keeping mandate, and no licensure requirement for AI-assisted care — a licensed clinician may use AI as a tool. Enforcement is through the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act of 1977 (violation listed per se at § 47-18-104(b)), with a $5,000 civil penalty per violation that expressly overrides the TCPA's general penalty limits; the act creates no cure period and no standalone private cause of action, though TCPA remedies including § 47-18-109 remain available.
Recent Regulatory Guidance
Troutman Pepper — Tennessee Enacts Health Care AI Bill with Private Right of Action (April 2026)
Law-firm implementation guidance published after Governor Bill Lee's April 1, 2026 signature, reading SB 1580 as barring AI chatbots, virtual therapists and wellness apps from advertising or representing themselves as mental-health professionals, enforced through the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act at $5,000 per violation with TCPA private-action exposure, effective July 1, 2026. CAUTION (R514): this piece also described a duty for the AI to disclose its nature at or before every therapeutic conversation. That duty is NOT in the enrolled statute — Public Chapter 647 contains no disclosure obligation of any kind. Treat the disclosure framing as commentary/best practice, not law.
Key Case Law & Precedent
FTC v. Cerebral, Inc. (D.D.C. 2024)
US Federal Trade Commission + DOJ · 2024FTC/DOJ settlement against telehealth mental-health platform Cerebral for deceptive cancellation practices and unauthorized sharing of sensitive mental-health data with third parties including LinkedIn and TikTok via tracking pixels. Cited here as an illustrative federal consumer-protection precedent for digital mental-health platforms; no Tennessee-specific source found this cycle confirming the Tennessee AG has cited this case by name.
Outcome: Order imposed a $10M civil penalty, suspended to $2M actually payable due to Cerebral's documented inability to pay the full amount, plus ~$5.1M in consumer redress (total actual payment ~$7.1M) and a permanent injunction banning use/disclosure of sensitive health data for advertising.
Case referenceFrequently Asked Questions
Does Tennessee AI Mental-Health Representation Prohibition (SB 1580 / Public Chapter 647; Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-205) apply to my business?
Tennessee SB 1580, enacted as Public Chapter No. 647 (passed March 16, 2026; approved by Governor Bill Lee April 1, 2026; effective July 1, 2026 and therefore IN FORCE), adds Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-205. The operative rule is one sentence: "A person… Use Aegis Firma's free scanner to get a personalized assessment in under 5 minutes.
What is the penalty for non-compliance?
The maximum penalty under Tennessee AI Mental-Health Representation Prohibition (SB 1580 / Public Chapter 647; Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-205) is: Civil penalty of $5,000 per violation (Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-205(b), expressly displacing the Tennessee Consumer Protection Act's general civil penalty limits). Because the conduct is made a TCPA violation and is listed at § 47-18-104(b) as a per-se unfair or deceptive act, the TCPA's remedial machinery — including the private right of action at § 47-18-109 and its attorney-fee provision — is available; PC 647 itself creates no separate private cause of action and sets no cure period.. Fines are typically scaled by company size, severity of violation, and whether violations were willful or accidental.
How do I comply with Tennessee AI Mental-Health Representation Prohibition (SB 1580 / Public Chapter 647; Tenn. Code Ann. § 33-1-205)?
The 2 requirements above cover the core obligations. The fastest path to compliance is: (1) conduct an AI risk assessment, (2) document your AI systems, (3) implement transparency disclosures where required. Aegis Firma generates all required documents automatically.
Official Source
https://publications.tnsosfiles.com/acts/114/pub/pc0647.pdfLast updated: 2026-08-25 — verify at source before relying on this information.
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