Can I legally use AI-generated images and text for my business in 2026?

Yes, you can generally use AI-generated content for your business, but the legal ground is still shaky and depends heavily on the specific tool's terms of service and how you use the output. The U.S. Copyright Office has consistently ruled that purely AI-generated works cannot be copyrighted because they lack human authorship, as confirmed in their 2025 guidance on AI-assisted works. This means a competitor could legally take the AI image you generated for your logo and use it themselves, and you'd have little recourse. For text, the risk is lower for everyday marketing copy, but you should still run it through a plagiarism checker — I've seen AI tools accidentally reproduce phrases from their training data. The safest approach is to treat AI as a first-draft assistant, then significantly modify its output with your own creative choices. This 'human authorship' layer is what makes it protectable. For a complete breakdown of the risks and best practices, see our guide on AI content copyright and legal issues. **Related**: Do I have to disclose when I use AI in my marketing? | What happens if my AI tool plagiarizes someone else's work?