OpenAI has instituted some new rules for ChatGPT regarding legal and medical advice. On October 29, 2025, it was announced that the world’s most well-known LLM will no longer offer tailored legal, medical, or financial advice.
If you’re anything like us and have been around search for a while, you probably thought, “Yeah, YMYL,” harkening back to Google’s treatment of topics dealing with a person’s money or life (Your Money, Your Life). We’ll walk through what changed, what searchers will notice, how this shapes law-firm operations, and how all of it connects to the ongoing YMYL (Your Money Your Life) standards that guide Google’s understanding of trustworthy content.
- What the OpenAI Policy Changes Are and What They Actually Mean
- What Searchers Will Experience When Asking Legal or Health Questions
- How These Updates Influence Law Firm Operations and the Role of Attorneys
- What These Changes Mean for Law Firm Marketing Strategies
- How All of This Connects to Google’s YMYL Standards
- The Bottom Line (for now?)
- Article Sources
What the OpenAI Policy Changes Are and What They Actually Mean
OpenAI reorganized and clarified its usage policies for models like ChatGPT. The most important section for law firms is the explicit guidance around legal and health topics. The company states that AI systems can provide general information but cannot deliver tailored advice that substitutes for a licensed professional.
For the legal world, this is not new, but it is now spelled out in a way that removes ambiguity for users, developers, and businesses that wrap services around AI models.
Here are the practical takeaways:
- AI can educate but cannot instruct someone on what they personally should do in a legal dispute, estate matter, custody issue, criminal charge, or any situation where outcomes have real legal consequences.
- Any platform using OpenAI’s models for legal services must include licensed attorney review for personalized guidance.
- OpenAI will continue to allow legal summaries, explanations of law, definitions, and general knowledge about legal processes.
- Models will be more likely to add disclaimers or redirect users to attorneys for anything that requires professional judgment (we sense a strong opportunity for ads coming).
For law firms and legal marketers, this is not a barrier. It is clarity, and clarity creates opportunity. Firms that expect transparency in AI tools can build workflows that comply with these rules while still benefiting from AI’s efficiency.
What Searchers Will Experience When Asking Legal or Health Questions
People using AI for legal questions will notice a few shifts in how answers appear and how far the model is willing to go. These include:
More explicit disclaimers
Users will see more prefaces that clarify the model is not a lawyer or medical provider. This is now part of the expected pattern and signals higher safety standards.
Steering toward education instead of direction
Questions like “What should I do if my landlord violated the lease?” will produce responses that outline general steps, legal principles, or typical processes rather than a prescriptive action plan.
Encouragement to involve a professional
Searchers may see referrals to attorneys, legal aid clinics, or government resources for individualized guidance. Here comes the ads we sensed.
More accuracy checks in responses
The model is more conservative with confidence, reducing subtle errors or speculative content in areas where the stakes are high.
Less room for loopholes
Attempts to bypass limitations by rephrasing questions tend to lead back to general guidance. This creates a more consistent safety layer for users.
Overall, the user experience becomes more aligned with how legal content is supposed to work (and what we’ve done for years with SEO content): helpful, broad, clear, and pointing toward qualified professionals for anything case-specific.
How These Updates Influence Law Firm Operations and the Role of Attorneys
Law firms using AI internally will need to demonstrate attorney involvement in any client-facing output. This does not mean AI becomes less useful. In fact, the updates formalize how firms should use AI:
- AI drafts, the attorney reviews.
- AI summarizes, the attorney validates.
- AI assists with communication, the attorney signs off.
This supports ethical rules that already require lawyer review of work performed by nonlawyers. AI tools simply become part of the remote support staff. Firms that embrace this approach gain speed and reduce administrative overhead without sacrificing compliance.
On the client side, law firms may see more questions about AI-generated information. Clients often bring AI summaries to consultations. These summaries improve attorney efficiency because they shorten the path toward understanding the client’s concerns. Well, that and they may also be a pain in the ass sometimes.
OpenAI’s clarifications help attorneys position themselves as vital decision-makers rather than just providers of information. In other words, this should help bolster YOU as the experienced legal mind someone should seek.
What These Changes Mean for Law Firm Marketing Strategies
This is where the biggest practical shift will happen. As AI becomes both more cautious and more central to how people consume information online, attorney-led marketing becomes even more valuable.
Educational content will outperform generic content
Since AI will avoid giving case-specific instructions, searchers will still look to law firm websites for local, detailed, jurisdiction-specific explanations.
Google rewards this with higher rankings because it meets YMYL content standards.
Authority signals matter more
Because AI is increasingly careful, users place more trust in:
- Named authors who are licensed attorneys
- Clear citations to statutes and government resources
- Local knowledge
- Practical explanations grounded in real experience
This raises the bar for law-firm blogs, practice area pages, and FAQ content. In fact, many of our clients have taken advantage of Focal Points, which is a step above basic SEO. If you’re interested, go check them out. —–> Focal Points.
Marketing language needs to match user expectations
Searchers may arrive with partial understanding shaped by AI summaries. That means law firm content must:
- Validate what the searcher already knows
- Clarify what applies specifically in your location
- Provide safe, accurate, and actionable next steps within ethical rules
- Emphasize the importance of human review
Firms that explain responsible AI use will win trust
A growing number of clients want to know whether their attorney leverages AI. Firms that publicly outline how AI assists with efficiency, but not judgment, gain a competitive advantage. My vet’s office uses AI to record the conversations and fill out the pet’s charts. They explained how they use AI to me and made it clear how it helps them treat the animals with higher quality care. I’m fine with it, especially because they explained it to me.
This is powerful content for newsletters, blog posts, and “About the Firm” pages. Embrace AI by acknowledging clients’ doubts and explaining why and how you use it.
AI will reshape the SEO moonscape
Because “general information” is easier for AI to generate, the pages that rank will be those with:
- Location-specific depth
- Attorney involvement
- Real examples
- Unique frameworks or insights
- Clear statements of professional oversight
In other words, AI pushes law firms toward higher-quality publishing. That is good for SEO and good for clients. It should also send signals that using AI only to generate content is a bad idea.
How All of This Connects to Google’s YMYL Standards
Google’s YMYL framework has governed legal SEO for years, even before AI became mainstream. Legal content is part of the Your Money Your Life category because it affects a person’s rights, safety, finances, and future.
Under YMYL:
- Content must demonstrate clear expertise
- Authors must be credible
- Claims must be accurate and sourced
- The site must be trustworthy
- Any advice must be safe
OpenAI’s new rules mirror that philosophy. Both systems now prioritize safety and credibility in high-impact domains.
The overlap between OpenAI’s policy and Google’s YMYL standards means that:
- Law firms that emphasize attorney review will gain more visibility
- Content grounded in state law (like Illinois statute citations) will outrank vague summaries
- Well-structured legal explanations will become even more valuable
- Trust signals, such as attorney bios and experience, matter more than ever
Lawyers who understand this dynamic will be able to connect with searchers in a way AI cannot. The result is stronger authority, better rankings, and more qualified leads.
The Bottom Line (for now?)
OpenAI’s policy updates did not remove legal information from AI tools. They clarified the boundaries that always existed and aligned them with ethical and safety standards in law. Searchers will still use AI to educate themselves, but they will rely on law firms to interpret laws, apply judgment, and make decisions.
For law firms, the moment calls for:
- Transparent use of AI
- High-quality educational content
- Clear demonstration of attorney involvement (find you some really good legal writers)
- Strong alignment with Google’s YMYL standards
Firms that adapt early (hopefully you already have been) will gain visibility, trust, and clients in a moonscape where AI shapes expectations but cannot replace licensed professionals.
Written by Blue Seven Content Co-Founders – Allen Watson and Victoria Lozano, Esq.
