Can I be sued for using AI?

According to recent data, over 70 AI copyright infringement lawsuits were filed in 2025, more than doubling the previous year’s total. This surge underscores the growing legal risks businesses face when using AI-generated content. From statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work to landmark settlements like the $1.5 billion Bartz v. Anthropic case, the financial stakes are significant. Small businesses leveraging AI tools must navigate these challenges carefully.

Copyright infringement remains a top concern. AI systems often train on copyrighted material, risking liability for unauthorized use. The Bartz v. Anthropic settlement, which required payments of ~$3,000 per book from 482,460 titles, highlights the scale of potential penalties. Ownership uncertainty complicates matters further—U.S. copyright law may not protect AI-generated content without human authorship, leaving businesses vulnerable to competitors copying their work.

Defamation liability is another critical risk. Courts increasingly hold companies responsible for false statements generated by AI, treating them as the “speaker” of the output. This shifts responsibility from the AI itself to the business deploying it. Meanwhile, AI hallucinations—fabricated statistics or incorrect information—can lead to false advertising claims or reputational harm.

For small businesses using AI tools like AI Business Sites, these risks emphasize the need for human oversight, documented processes, and legal consultation. As the U.S. Copyright Office and courts refine frameworks, proactive risk management will be essential to avoid costly litigation.

The good news from every legal expert weighing in on this question: while the risks are real, they are also manageable. With over 70 AI-related infringement lawsuits filed in 2025 — more than double the total at the end of 2024 — the businesses most exposed are those treating AI content as a fire-and-forget product. The ones reducing their exposure share a common playbook: they never let AI output reach the public without a human checking it first.

The foundation is human oversight for everything you publish. Legal analysts at Kelley Kronenberg identify human review, documented content-creation processes, and AI content screening as core risk-management strategies for any business using generated content. In practice, this means someone on your team reads every blog post, service page, and customer-facing message before it goes live — not spot-checking, but actually reviewing.

That review needs teeth, because AI systems "hallucinate." Generated content can contain fabricated statistics, incorrect legal information, and false claims that create defamation and false-advertising liability. A Bloomberg Law analysis by White & Case attorneys notes that courts are treating companies that deploy AI as the "speaker" of its outputs — meaning you can be held responsible for false statements your tools produce, and the defense that "the model made a mistake" faces serious challenges in court.

A practical verification protocol looks like this:

• Fact-check every statistic, price, and claim against a real source before publishing
• Remove or rewrite any statement you cannot verify — especially legal, financial, or medical claims
• Keep records of your review process so you can demonstrate due diligence
• Establish a correction mechanism so errors can be fixed quickly if discovered

Bloomberg Law's authors go further, recommending that companies run pre-deployment reviews and avoid potentially actionable content before it ever reaches the public — screening out anything that makes claims about real people, competitors, or regulated topics without solid grounding. They also suggest notice-and-takedown protocols so problems can be addressed promptly.

Two more steps belong on every small business checklist. First, put a written AI usage policy in place — Kelley Kronenberg lists this, alongside reviewing your insurance coverage and consulting legal or IP professionals, as standard mitigation. Second, don't assume you own what AI creates for you: under current U.S. Copyright Office guidance, purely AI-generated content may not qualify for copyright protection at all, which means a competitor could legally copy it.

Finally, the law here is moving fast. Fair use for AI training remains unsettled, with major cases like Thomson Reuters v. Ross still pending, so it's worth following the Copyright Office's ongoing AI work and litigation trackers as you scale your content operations.

This is also why we built our content pipeline the way we did at AI Business Sites: every piece passes through dedicated research, claim-verification, and citation agents before a human sees it — and nothing publishes without approval. For small business owners, the takeaway is simple. AI can do the heavy lifting, but the legal responsibility stays with you. Treat every AI draft as exactly that — a draft — and your exposure drops dramatically.

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According to industry research, businesses using AI face escalating legal risks, including copyright infringement lawsuits with statutory damages up to $150,000 per work and liability for AI-generated defamation. These challenges are compounded by the growing number of AI-related lawsuits, with over 70 infringement cases filed in 2025 alone. Recent litigation highlights the financial stakes, such as the $1.5 billion Bartz v. Anthropic settlement, underscoring the need for proactive risk management.

AI Business Sites mitigates these risks through its human-in-the-loop architecture, ensuring every AI-generated output undergoes manual review before publication. This aligns with recommendations from legal experts who emphasize human oversight as a core strategy for reducing exposure. The platform’s content verification workflows further guard against inaccuracies, with claims and statistics cross-checked against verified sources to prevent AI hallucinations that could lead to defamation or false advertising liabilities.

Clients also benefit from ownership guarantees, as the platform ensures all content, data, and intellectual property are fully owned by the business. This addresses concerns about AI-generated content’s copyright status under U.S. law, where human authorship is required for protection. By integrating these safeguards, AI Business Sites transforms AI into a secure, compliant tool for small businesses.

• Human review of all AI outputs to prevent legal exposure
• Fact-checking processes to eliminate AI-generated inaccuracies
• Full ownership of all content, data, and intellectual property

The platform’s approach reflects a growing industry consensus: legal risks from AI are real but manageable with the right safeguards. By combining technical rigor with legal awareness, AI Business Sites helps businesses harness AI’s power without compromising compliance.