Can you use AI images on websites and social media?

Use this workflow

Confirm commercial use is allowed for your generator/plan.
Review logos, people, text, fictional characters and brand lookalikes before publishing.
Add truthful AI disclosure where a platform or law requires it, especially for synthetic depictions of real people or events.
Compress and resize assets for web performance; retain the original separately.
Do not assume public posting gives you exclusive rights or prevents others from generating similar outputs.

Where people get this use case wrong

The commercial-use checkbox is only the beginning. These are realistic failure modes for this specific workflow:

A synthetic image of a real event is posted without context and viewers reasonably interpret it as documentary photography.
A social graphic includes an accidental logo, nonsense text or a recognizable person that was not noticed until after the post is promoted.
A company assumes an output is exclusive because it owns or may use the generated file, even though the provider warns that other users can receive similar outputs.

What to keep on file

You do not need a legal dossier for every casual image, but material commercial work is easier to defend and re-check when the creation process is documented.

The original high-resolution generation before web compression or cropping.
The generator, model, plan and generation date.
Any disclosure or label added because of the platform, jurisdiction or subject matter.
The review record for logos, text, likenesses and source assets before publication.

Generator starting points

The table below is the provider side only. A “generally permitted” generator can still lead to a conditional or blocked result when the destination has its own AI-content rule.

Tool	Commercial-use status	Plan / rights note
Midjourney	Conditional	If a company has more than US$1 million in gross revenue, Midjourney requires Pro or Mega to own/use generated assets commercially under its current terms.
ChatGPT Images / OpenAI	Generally permitted	No special consumer plan gate is identified here for ordinary commercial use. API and business services are governed by the OpenAI Services Agreement in addition to applicable service-specific terms, with separate contractual protections and exclusions.
Adobe Firefly	Generally permitted	The key distinction is the model/feature used, not merely the subscription name. Partner models inside Firefly can have different terms and should be checked separately.
Ideogram	Generally permitted	Do not confuse output rights with model-weight licensing. Hosted/API output use and self-hosted model weights are separate paths: the public open weights are non-commercial unless you obtain the applicable self-serve commercial or enterprise licence.
Leonardo.Ai	Generally permitted	Commercial use is possible on both free and paid tiers, but paid usage provides materially stronger ownership/control according to Leonardo’s current pricing and terms pages.
Recraft	Conditional	Free: no commercial use. Paid: business/personal use is permitted and Recraft assigns its copyright interest in generated assets, subject to the terms.
Canva AI / Magic Studio	Conditional	The important access distinction here is not a subscription price gate but whether the output is standalone AI output or incorporates Canva Licensed Content governed by Canva's Content License Agreement.
Runway	Generally permitted	No ordinary plan-based commercial-use gate is identified in the current usage-rights guidance. Enterprise arrangements can add privacy, no-training or contractual protections, but those are separate from the baseline output-use permission.
Magnific / Freepik AI	Conditional	Free: do not rely on the asset for commercial deployment. Paid: commercial AI-content licence is included, subject to the service terms and third-party rights.

Do not skip the destination platform. A generator’s commercial-use permission does not override Etsy, KDP, stock-site or marketplace rules. Use the checker when the final destination is one of the supported platforms.

Primary sources

Open the current official source before a high-value or sensitive use.

AI Pic Market last reviewed these sources on September 16, 2026.