Hello,
Have you created an AI policy for your business yet? If not, I'd suggest doing it this week and this email gives you a rough template to start from.
Without one, your team are either using AI quietly and hoping nobody minds or they've been banned from it altogether.
A sales lad from a totally different industry recently reached out to me as his company banned AI on work computers and he's losing whole afternoons to work that a machine would do in ten minutes. The ban only exists because nobody wrote a page saying what's allowed. It is also worrying that his company have totally banned ai - but that’s their problem.
So what I'm giving you here is one page that does two jobs at once. It encourages your team to use AI, because you want them to and it protects them and the business by making the handful of no-go areas clear. Make sure you nail the tone of it to read as encouraging them to use AI and not putting barriers up.
Here's what I wiuld suggest, roughly. Copy it into a document, change the names, and edit as suits you.
AI use at [business name]
We want you to use AI. It saves time on the boring parts of the job and we'd rather you were experimenting with it than avoiding it. This page is so you know where the lines are.
Things that must never go into an AI tool
Customer personal details. Names alongside addresses, phone numbers, emails, or account information.
Bank details, card numbers or any payment information, ours or anyone else's.
Passwords or logins of any kind.
Payroll, HR records, or anything about a named member of staff.
Anything a customer or supplier has given us in confidence.
Things you're encouraged to use it for
Drafting emails, quotes, letters and minutes
Summarising documents and long email threads
Understanding something you're unsure about, from a product spec to a contract clause
Working through problems and checking your thinking
Customer situations with the identifying details removed ("a landscaping customer in Ayrshire" rather than the actual name)
Three rules that cover everything else
Read everything before it leaves the business. The AI drafts, you check, then it goes.
If you're not sure whether something can go in, it can't until you've asked [name/department]. When in doubt, ask.
Only use the paid business accounts we've set up, not personal free accounts. The free versions of some tools can use what you type to improve their models. Our accounts are set up so they don't.
Questions about any of this go to [name or department].
That's the whole doc as a starting point. It fits on a page because it has to. Nobody will read the twelve page version full of corporate nonsense just as they don’t read your 14 paragraph emails.
A few things on filling it in. The [name] should be one person who's happy to answer the "can I put this in" question quickly, because if that takes a week, people will stop asking.
Set the team up with proper paid accounts before you hand the page out, otherwise rule three is asking for something you haven't provided. And send it as good news. "We want you to use this, here's how" gets used. "New policy attached" will get ignored.
If you're an employee and your work has a ban, this is the page to draft and hand to your boss.
Reply and tell me whether your business has a policy, a ban or nothing. I'd be interested in the mix. And if you have a better policy please share it with me.
Andrew
Ps. The same tools that draft your emails are now being used to clone directors' voices and phone accounts teams about urgent payments. There's one simple rule that stops it. I’ll fire that out as an email when I get a minute