Guides · Updated October 4, 2026
Who owns work your employees create with AI?
The short answer
Work employees create as part of their job generally belongs to the employer. The catch is that material produced entirely by an AI tool, without enough human creative contribution, may not be protected by U.S. copyright at all, so a competitor could copy it. Your policy should say that AI-assisted work belongs to the company, and important work should carry enough human authorship to be protected.
Copyright needs a human author
The U.S. Copyright Office’s position, set out in its 2025 report on copyrightability, is that copyright protects human authorship. Prompts alone are generally not enough; a person’s selection, arrangement or changes to AI output can be. In 2025 a federal appeals court agreed that a work made by a machine alone cannot be registered.
What that means for a business
- A logo, slogan or marketing copy produced entirely by AI may not be yours to protect. Have a person make real creative choices in work you need to own.
- Client contracts may require you to disclose AI use, or forbid it for certain work. Check your agreements before using AI on client deliverables.
- Information typed into a tool is still subject to your confidentiality duties, whoever ends up owning the output.
What the policy should say
That work produced with AI in the course of employment belongs to the company; that employees disclose AI use where a client or the company requires it; and that work the company needs to own or register is produced with meaningful human contribution and records of who did what.
Sources
This guide is general information for U.S. employers, not legal advice. Standard Practice is not a law firm. Laws change and depend on where your employees work; take advice from employment counsel on your own situation.