1. Know which tools are allowed
Name them. If the business pays for one, say so and ask people to use that account for work. A personal free account may treat what is typed into it differently from a business plan, and you cannot see or manage what goes into it.
2. Keep private information out
Customer names and addresses, staff records, bank details, contracts and anything commercially sensitive stay out unless you have checked how that tool handles data and are satisfied. A simple way to put it to staff: if you would not write it on a postcard, do not paste it in. The Information Commissioner’s Office publishes guidance on AI and data protection, and it is worth ten minutes of an owner’s time.
3. Read everything before it is used
AI tools write fluently and can be wrong in a very convincing way. Figures, dates, names, quotes and anything legal must be checked against a real source. The person who sends it is responsible for it, whatever wrote the first draft.
4. Be straight with customers
If a customer is talking to an assistant and not a person, tell them, and make it easy to reach a person. Do not use generated pictures in a way that suggests they show your real work, premises or people.
5. Say who to ask
Give people one name to go to when they are unsure. Most problems start with someone guessing because asking felt awkward. Look at the rules again every few months; the tools change quickly.
Making it stick
Rules pinned to a wall do little alone. Ten minutes at a staff meeting, with a couple of real examples from your own work, does far more. If you would like help, writing a first draft of these rules together is part of every workshop I run.