Can my AI agent give legal, health, or financial help?

Where general information ends and licensed advice begins, the rules that apply to AI in law, health, and finance, and how to design and market these products.

Short answer

It can provide information and help users with tasks, but in law, health, and finance there is a line it should not cross without licensed professionals: individualized advice, diagnosis, or recommendations that a license is required to give. Regulators have also gone after companies for overstating what their AI can do. How you market the product matters as much as what it does.

Law

• Every state prohibits the unauthorized practice of law. Applying the law to a specific person's situation, drafting documents tailored to their facts, or representing them can cross the line. General legal information and self-help tools generally do not.
• The FTC finalized a settlement with DoNotPay in early 2025 over unsupported claims that its "robot lawyer" could substitute for a human lawyer. The order requires $193,000 in monetary relief and notice to past subscribers, and bars claims that its AI can replace professional services without evidence. It was a case about deceptive marketing, not a ruling that AI legal help is unlawful.
• Products built with or for licensed lawyers, who supervise and take responsibility for the output, are on firmer ground.

Health

• FDA rules don't regulate software as a medical device just because it uses AI. What matters is its intended medical function and the claims made for it. In January 2026 the FDA issued updated final guidance on clinical decision support software and on general wellness products. Clinical decision support is excluded from device regulation when it meets four criteria: it doesn't analyze medical images or signals, it works with medical information, it supports a health care professional's decisions, and it lets the professional independently review the basis for its recommendations rather than rely mainly on its conclusion. Failing one criterion doesn't automatically make software a regulated device, because other exclusions and enforcement policies may apply. Scheduling and billing are generally outside device rules; drafting a clinical note is usually documentation; suggesting diagnoses for a clinician needs the decision-support analysis; diagnosing from images or directing treatment on its own is more likely regulated. For clinical AI, the line between documenting the clinician's judgment and making an independent clinical recommendation matters most.
• Mental health. Illinois (effective August 1, 2025) and Nevada (effective July 1, 2025) restrict AI systems from independently providing professional mental health treatment. Illinois bars AI from providing therapy or communicating therapeutically with clients. Nevada bars offering AI programmed to provide professional mental or behavioral health care, or presenting it as a therapist. Neither is a blanket ban: both allow AI for administrative and clinician-support work such as scheduling, billing, and notes, with conditions that vary by state. Illinois, for example, requires written disclosure and consent when AI helps record or transcribe sessions. Civil penalties reach $10,000 per violation in Illinois and $15,000 in Nevada. Utah requires mental health chatbots to disclose that they are AI, restricts selling or sharing users' health information and conversations, and bars using conversations to target ads. Companion-chatbot laws in California and New York add crisis-response requirements.
• Health data brings in HIPAA if you work for health care providers or plans, and consumer health data laws otherwise.

Finance

• Personalized investment advice for compensation generally requires registration as an investment adviser, with fiduciary duties.
• The SEC pursues "AI washing": false or misleading claims about AI capabilities. In 2024 it settled with investment advisers Delphia and Global Predictions ($400,000 in combined penalties) and with Rimar Capital over its claimed AI trading platform. In 2026 it brought a settled case against an AI startup and its former CEO over claims about revenue, demand, and its AI marketplace, and filed fraud cases over AI trading signals and trading bots it says didn't exist (those are pending). Back up every material claim about your AI, especially to investors and in financial-services marketing.
• Lenders that use AI to deny credit must still give specific, accurate reasons under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act and Regulation B. Vague reasons like "internal standards" or "insufficient score" don't satisfy the rule, and for a typical completed application the notice is due within 30 days. The CFPB withdrew its AI-specific guidance on this in May 2025, but the underlying law is unchanged.
• Insurance, lending, and money transmission each have their own licensing.

Designing on the right side of the line

• Information, not instructions to a specific person. Explain the rules and the options. Don't tell a user what they should do in their particular case unless a licensed professional is responsible for it.
• Put licensed professionals in the loop for the steps that need them, and make their role real, not a rubber stamp.
• Market honestly. Don't say the product replaces a lawyer, doctor, or adviser, or that it is accurate, safe, or compliant unless you can prove it.
• Route emergencies. Health and mental health products need a clear path to human help.
• Disclose that users are dealing with AI, and what it can and cannot do.

Checklist an agent can run against the codebase

• Find the system prompts and check how the agent handles requests for individualized legal, medical, or financial advice.
• List outputs that recommend a specific action for a specific user's situation.
• Find where licensed professionals review output, and whether the agent can act without that review.
• Check for crisis or emergency detection and what happens when it triggers.
• Collect the product's marketing and in-app claims about accuracy, expertise, or replacing professionals.

Sources

• Illinois Public Act 104-0054 (Wellness and Oversight for Psychological Resources Act)
• Nevada AB 406, 2025 Statutes
• FTC: order finalized against DoNotPay

If this applies to you

An agent product review covers where your product sits relative to these lines and how to design and market it. For an AI feature inside an existing app, an AI feature review may fit better.