Google Will Indemnify Customers for Generative AI Use

Following in the footsteps of Adobe and Microsoft, Google said this week that it will indemnify customers who use its generative AI functionality.

“To put it plainly for you, our customers: if you are challenged on copyright grounds, we will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved,” Google vice presidents Neal Suggs and Phil Venables write in a post to the company’s AI & Machine Learning blog. “To do this we will employ a two-pronged, industry-first approach designed to give you more peace of mind when using our generative AI products. The first prong relates to Google’s use of training data, while the second specifically covers generated output of foundation models.”

The policy covers content created by Google’s Duet AI in Google Workspace and Google Cloud (including its assisted application development functionality), Vertex AI across Search, Conversation, Text Embedding API/Multimodal Embeddings, and Captioning/Visual Q&A, and the Codey APIs. And it requires that its customers don’t intentionally create or use generated output that’s designed to infringe on the rights of others.

The two indemnity prongs referenced in the quote are related to training data and generated output. The former isn’t actually new, as Google has long offered standard third-party intellectual property indemnity to the customers that use its services, including generative AI services. But the second is new, and it provides a second layer of protection, against third-party intellectual property rights, for content created by its customers using generative AI.

“We hope this gives you confidence that your company is protected against third parties claiming copyright infringement,” the pair continues. “You can use content generated with a range of our products knowing Google will indemnify you for third-party IP claims, including copyright — assuming your company is following responsible AI practices.”