Using AI tools at work without leaking company data
Ziad Kanaan
Staff are already pasting contracts and spreadsheets into chatbots. A short policy and a few settings can keep sensitive information inside the company.
Ask around any office and you will find people using AI assistants to draft emails, summarise reports and clean up spreadsheets, often without telling anyone.
The risk is in the paste
Anything typed into a public tool may be stored outside the company. Customer lists, salaries and draft contracts should never go into a tool your company has not approved.
Write a one-page policy
Say which tools are approved, what may never be shared and who to ask when in doubt. Staff follow short rules; they ignore long ones.
Choose business plans
Business versions of AI tools usually let you switch off training on your data and keep it in a chosen region, which matters for banks and healthcare providers.
Check the output
AI can sound confident and still be wrong. Make a person responsible for every document that leaves the company, whoever drafted it.