Write your AI policy before your staff write it for you

If you have not given your team guidance on AI tools, assume they are already using them. People paste emails, spreadsheets, and contract language into chat tools to save time, usually with good intentions and no idea where that data goes. A short, clear policy lets you capture the benefits and avoid the risks.

Where AI helps

• Drafting and editing routine communication.
• Summarizing long documents and meetings.
• Brainstorming, outlining, and research starting points.
• Spotting patterns in data you are allowed to analyze.

Where it creates risk

• Data exposure. Information entered into a public tool may be stored or used in ways you do not control.
• Accuracy. AI can sound confident while being wrong. Unchecked output reaching a client or a regulator is a liability.
• Compliance. Health, financial, and personal information carries legal obligations that do not disappear because a tool is convenient.
• Ownership. Questions about who owns generated content and what it was trained on are still evolving.

What a one-page policy should say

• Approved tools. Name the tools staff may use for work, and say that others require approval.
• Data rules. Spell out what may never be entered: client records, health or financial details, credentials, and confidential business information.
• Review requirement. A person must check anything AI produces before it is sent or relied upon.
• Disclosure. When and how you tell clients that AI was used.
• Accountability. The employee remains responsible for the final work.
• Questions and reporting. Who to ask, and what to do if sensitive data was shared by mistake.

Make it practical

A policy people can read in five minutes will be followed more often than a twenty-page document. Pair it with a short training session and a few examples of good and bad prompts. Review it every six months, because the tools and the rules are changing quickly.

Provide an approved option so people are not tempted to use personal accounts. The goal is not to forbid AI. It is to use it on purpose.

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