Our employees are secretly using public AI tools like ChatGPT to write client emails and analyze internal spreadsheets, and we are terrified of proprietary data leaks. How do we roll out a simple, enforceable AI usage policy that protects our intellectual property without killing our team's productivity?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

If you try to ban AI, your team will just hide their usage, and you will lose all visibility into your operational risks. Instead of a heavy handbook, create a simple, one-page AI usage policy that focuses on three strict rules.

First, establish a 'zero-upload' rule for customer data. No one may paste client names, proprietary financial spreadsheets, or sensitive intellectual property into public, free AI tools. If they need to analyze a spreadsheet, they must use your company's approved, private enterprise accounts where data is not used for model training.

Second, enforce the 'review' rule. No AI-generated text may be sent directly to a client or vendor without a human reviewing and editing it first. The human owner of the seat on your Accountability Chart remains fully accountable for the accuracy of every word sent.

Third, maintain a shared register of approved tools. If a team member wants to use a new AI tool to hit their quarterly Rocks, they must submit it to the Integrator for a quick security review before downloading it.

Share this policy at your next state of the company meeting. Frame it as a way to help them work faster and safer, not as a tool for micromanagement.