Many companies now have text, images and even logos created by an AI. It is quick and costs little. Two questions often stay open: do I have to label something as coming from an AI? And: do I even own an AI logo exclusively?
As of November 2026. This article is guidance only and not legal advice. The legal position around AI is in flux – for any specific plans, have your individual case reviewed.
When AI content must be labelled
Labelling is governed by the EU AI Act (the AI regulation) through its transparency duties. One common misconception first: not everything made with AI has to be labelled. The AI Act does not require a blanket “made with AI” mark on every piece of text and every image. What matters is a few clearly defined cases.
Chatbots: If you use an AI chatbot on your website, you must make it clear to visitors that they are talking to a system and not a person. A note at the start of the chat is usually enough.
Deepfakes and realistic AI images: Image, audio and video content that reproduces a real scene or real people convincingly, even though it was artificially created or altered, has to be disclosed. In practice this means: an AI “person” that looks like a real employee, or an AI photo that fakes a real situation, should be labelled.
Synthetic content: On top of that there is a duty to mark AI output in a machine-readable way, for example through an invisible watermark. This is aimed primarily at the providers of the AI systems – not at every company that uses an image from them. What matters most for you as a user: do not remove such marks and do not pass off AI content as genuine recordings.
In short: an “about us” text co-written by AI generally needs no warning. A chatbot and a convincingly real AI image of people do.
The AI logo – and why it rarely protects your brand
This is where the real risk lies for many businesses. A logo knocked out “in no time” by an AI looks like a bargain. Legally, you are often on thin ice.
A court has refused AI logos copyright protection
In February 2026 the Munich Local Court ruled that logos created with an AI image generator enjoy no copyright protection. The work lacks the necessary “creative depth”. The reasoning is telling:
- Prompting is not enough. General descriptions from which the AI designs freely do not make the human the author.
- Correcting is craft, not creation. The court treated colour adjustments and rounds of improvement as technical, not creative, work.
- Effort does not count. A lot of time or an expensive premium version does not establish protection.
This is a widely noted but first-instance decision on an individual case. There is no supreme court ruling yet. The line does, however, fit the basic principle of German copyright law, which requires a personal intellectual creation by a human.
What this means in practice: no exclusive rights
If no copyright exists in your AI logo, you cannot stop others from using it. In plain terms: a competitor could use an identical or very similar AI logo. That makes your mark non-exclusive. There is a second risk on top: AI models learn from existing images. A generated logo can unintentionally resemble someone else’s already protected mark – and you infringe third-party trademark rights without noticing.
Copyright is not trademark law
A common misunderstanding: these are two different things. Copyright arises automatically – but only where there is a human creative achievement. Trademark protection arises through registration with the trademark office; what counts there is whether a sign is distinctive. So an AI logo can in principle be registered as a figurative mark – but only for the registered classes and in the respective country, and registration does not protect against your mark resembling an existing one. Before any application, a search for earlier signs is therefore part of the job. It is also worth looking at the AI tool’s terms of use – some restrict commercial use.
What you as a business should do
- Use AI content honestly: label the chatbot as AI, disclose realistic AI images of people, pass nothing off as a genuine recording.
- Real photos for real trust: for your team, products and references, real images are almost always the better choice – legally clear and more credible.
- Don’t cut corners on the logo: a designed logo, where a human makes the creative decisions, can be protected, registered as a trademark and is truly yours.
A logo that is yours
A mark you may hold no exclusive rights to, and that anyone else may use just the same, will not carry your brand far. Real design does not come at the push of a button, but from an idea, a clear form and deliberate decisions – and that is exactly what makes it protectable and unmistakable.
We design logos and brand identities by hand: a mark that suits you, is built in a way you can follow and belongs to you. Logos start at €590. What makes sense for your project is something we clarify in a free initial consultation – calmly and with no obligation.