27 Aug AI in the Workplace: Is Your Business Information Going Into AI?

Here’s a question for your next team meeting:

“Who here uses AI for work?”

You might be surprised by how many hands go up.

ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot and other AI tools are quickly becoming part of everyday working life.

Writing an email. Summarising a document. Coming up with ideas. Analysing information. Checking some wording.

AI can be incredibly useful.

But there’s another question businesses need to start asking:

What information are people putting into it?

It Can Happen Without Anyone Realising

Imagine an employee receives a long customer email and wants some help writing a response.

They copy the email into an AI tool and ask:

“Can you summarise this and write me a reply?”

Helpful. Quick. Easy.

But what was in that email?

A customer’s name? Contact details? Financial information? Something confidential?

Or perhaps someone wants AI to analyse a spreadsheet, so they upload the whole file.

Someone else wants meeting notes summarised, so they paste those in too.

Nobody is deliberately trying to put the business at risk.

They’re simply trying to get their job done more efficiently.

That’s why AI in the workplace needs to be talked about.

Do You Know Which AI Tools Your Team Uses?

You don’t need to become an AI expert.

Start by asking your team five simple questions:

• What AI tools are you using?
• What do you use them for?
• Are you copying customer or employee information into them?
• Are you uploading business documents?
• Do you know what information shouldn’t be shared?

The answers will give you a much clearer picture of how AI is actually being used across your business.

The Answer Isn’t Necessarily to Ban AI

AI has the potential to save businesses a lot of time.

Banning it completely could mean missing out on genuinely useful technology — and it doesn’t necessarily mean employees will stop using it anyway.

A better approach is to give people some clear boundaries.

For example:

Don’t enter passwords or login details.

Don’t upload confidential documents without approval.

Think before entering personal or customer information.

If you’re unsure whether something should be shared, ask first.

It doesn’t need to become a 30-page policy nobody reads.

The important thing is that everyone understands the basics.

Start the Conversation

AI is developing incredibly quickly.

For many businesses, employees are already experimenting with it before the company has had a chance to decide how it should be used.

So start with one simple question:

“How are we currently using AI?”

You might learn more about AI in your workplace from that one conversation than you expect.

And once you know how it’s being used, you can start deciding what sensible boundaries your business needs.

That’s Making IT Simple.

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Want to Read More?

If you found this useful, you may also enjoy reading User Access Management: Who Has Access to Your Business? – Simply IT