Twilio’s AI Nutrition label: A front door to trust
Twilio, the cloud communications platform known for enabling personalized messaging across voice, text, and digital channels, has taken a proactive and pragmatic approach to AI transparency. In mid-2023, the company launched its AI Nutrition Facts Label to explain how Twilio products use generative AI. With over 300,000 customers, from startups to large enterprises, Twilio needed a way to clearly communicate with both technical and non-technical users, consistent with its ethos of transparency, responsibility, and accountability. “Model cards are great,” noted Kat McCormick Sweeney, Director, Emerging Technology & Innovation, who led Twilio’s nutrition label initiative. “But they still felt suited to technical audiences. The nutrition label metaphor just resonated more with our broad customer base.”
Crucially, the label is more than a communication tool; it’s a formal output embedded in the product development lifecycle. Any Twilio product using generative AI must include a completed nutrition label after passing the pilot stage to move forward. This makes labelling a standard development checkpoint, not an afterthought. The label itself includes information Twilio considers most important, based on its dual perspective as both a buyer of AI tools and a builder of AI-powered products. It outlines which large language models are used, how customer data is handled, what limitations exist, and how the AI system is designed to behave (see Figure 1 for an example).
Customer response has been positive, especially among developers and business leaders who are just beginning to explore Twilio’s products. The label is typically introduced early in the engagement process, serving as a starting point to proactively communicate Twilio’s use of generative AI, well before more detailed technical or privacy reviews take place. In an unexpected twist, the label has also gained traction beyond Twilio. Released as an open-source initiative, Twilio’s AI Nutrition Label has been downloaded by developers, educators, and others, like the San Francisco Exploratorium, seeking to educate non-technical audiences about their use of AI.
For Twilio, the nutrition label is more than a compliance tool; it’s a conversation starter, a symbol of intent, and a step toward industry-wide transparency. “We’re still in learning mode as we review which information is most relevant to our customers as AI systems evolve,” Sweeney noted. “But we want to help shape this space by doing the right thing.”