The Family Mediation Council (FMC) is urging separating couples not to reply on AI chatbots to influence life-changing decisions, warning the tools cannot replace “expertise, training and human judgement”.
Home of regulated family mediation in England and Wales, the FMC has acknowledged that AI tools can sound confident and empathetic but still does not compare to the support provided by a registered family mediator.
The call comes as family lawyers report more clients arriving to initial consultations having already consulted AI to outline their own divorce settlements.
“AI can sound like it knows you. It doesn’t,” Helen Anthony, CEO of the FMC warned.
“It gives you the same answer it would give anyone else with roughly the same question, cleverly dressed up to sound personal.
“A qualified family mediator takes time to get to know your family situation: your shared history, your children, what has happened, and what those involved aspire for in the future.
“The mediator uses their expertise, training and years of experience to help you find a solution that works for you, not a generic script.”
Increasingly mediators report people coming to them having tried to use an AI tool or a search engine, and becoming more confused, not less, said Anthony
“A convincing voice is not the same as an expert one” she said, adding “AI chatbots are often designed to sound warm, attentive and reassuring, as though they know and understand the person communicating with them.
“For families going through separation, at vulnerable and high-stakes moments, this can be misleading. An AI tool has no training in family dynamics, no accountability for the advice it gives, and no ability to read what is really happening between two people navigating one of the toughest periods of their lives.”
The subject was a recent discussion on the Today’s Family Lawyer podcast. Stephanie Douthwaite, a partner at Harrogate Family Law, discussed the complexities of managing couple’s expectations when they have utilised tech platforms to draft financial remedies.
There is a balance, suggests Douthwaite, between applauding couples for their efforts, while ensuring “DIY disasters” don’t drive a wedge through the proceedings.
While AI safely interprets basic legal concepts, it fundamentally lacks the nuance, strategy, and professional discretion required to execute fact-specific law she added.
Anthony concurs: “What they needed was someone who could sit with them, listen properly, and help them work out what mattered most for everyone in the family, especially the children. That is much more beneficial than reading more words from a chatbot app.
“Separation is not a generic problem with a generic answer.
“It’s your children, your home, your money and debts. It’s your future. That deserves a real, trained expert in the room with you – not an algorithm guessing what you want to hear.”
FMC registered mediators have met standards that no AI tool is held to; a level of “accountability, scrutiny and real human expertise that simply has no equivalent in an AI tool, however fluent or confident it may sound” concluded the body.
