The act would exclude religious counseling or peer support programs.

The act would also exclude self-help materials that "do not purport to offer therapy or psychotherapy services."

The bill was introduced by state Rep. Bob Morgan, D-Deerfield, Ill.

The Illinois chapter of the National Association of Social Workers developed the bill and says it believes implementing the act would make Illinois the first state to regulate use of AI systems in mental health care.

Regulated: AI in health claim processing: Illinois lawmaker hopes to regulate state use

Before the bill can become law, Illinois Gov. Jay Pritzker must sign it. Pritzker, a Democrat, has not said what he thinks about the bill.

The backdrop: Researchers in Australia, for example, recently reported that a chatbot system that talked to people waiting to get eating disorder treatment produced measurable improvement in patients' eating disorder problems and in their symptoms of depression and anxiety.

Researchers in China conducted a review of AI-driven conversational agents and found that, based on the studies analyzed, the systems may not have much effect on people's levels of stress or overall wellbeing but seem to have a noticeable effect on symptoms of depression.

Use of AI in health care is starting to become a hot health policy topic in the United States.

In Congress, for example, Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., has introduced a bill that would require Medicare program managers to set standards for AI-based services that provide remote monitoring for people with Medicare coverage.

Schweikert has also introduced a bill that could let some AI systems prescribe drugs.

California is an example of a state with active discussions about health care AI issues.

The California Assembly has sent the state Senate a bill that would prohibit the users of AI systems from letting the systems present themselves to the public as health care professionals.

California Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan, D-San Ramon, Calif., the chair of the Assembly Privacy and Consumer Protection Committee, recently said at a recent hearing on health privacy that she worries even about the kind of data collected by medical doctors' in-office session recording systems.

What it means: Employers and benefits advisors may have mixed feelings about the health policymaking efforts.

America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade group for health insurers, has emphasized that developing reasonable safety and privacy requirements will be important to making use of AI-based health technology useful and popular. AHIP has recommended letting federal agencies take the lead in regulating health AI and emphasizing the use of existing laws and regulations, such as the health information privacy provisions in the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

But analysts at Paragon Health Institute, a research center popular with Republicans, have emphasized that insurers, employers and others have to be wary of efforts by care providers and others to shut out AI-based services that might compete with the providers for business and hurt their revenue.