A conversation I’m having more often with business owners goes something like this: “We don’t really use AI yet.”
A few questions later, it turns out somebody is using ChatGPT to help write emails.
Someone else is summarising meeting notes with an AI tool.
Another person has found a browser extension that helps them create content faster.
The business may not have formally adopted AI, but AI has arrived anyway.
That’s not surprising.
When people find a tool that helps them get through their work more quickly, they’re going to be curious about it. If it saves time, they’ll keep using it.
The difficulty comes when nobody has stopped to agree where the boundaries are.
Imagine a member of your team receives a long customer email and pastes it into a public AI tool to help draft a reply.
The response comes back in seconds and saves them fifteen minutes of work.
Tomorrow they do it again.
A week later they upload a proposal because they want a summary.
A month later somebody else is using a different AI tool to analyse a spreadsheet.
At no point does anybody feel they’re doing something risky. They’re trying to work more efficiently.
Yet customer information, financial data, internal documents, and business plans can end up being shared with systems that haven’t been reviewed or approved by the business.
That can happen without any bad intentions.
I’ve also noticed that AI spreads differently from other technologies.
A new accounting package usually goes through a buying process. A new CRM gets discussed before it arrives. But AI tools are discovered by individuals during the working day and adopted immediately.
By the time a business starts thinking about an AI policy, people may already have their favourite tools and workflows.
That creates an awkward situation.
If somebody believes a tool is helping them do their job better, they may not understand why they’re being told not to use it.
Quite often, they feel they’re solving a problem rather than creating one.
So, to get the most value from AI, have open conversations about it.
Make sure your team all understand which tools are being used, where information is going, and what data should never be shared outside approved systems.
That gives people enough freedom to benefit from the technology without accidentally creating risks for the business.
If you’ve never asked your team which AI tools they’re using, the answers might surprise you.
It’s a good place to start.
If you’d like help reviewing how AI is being used across your business, and making sure it’s helping rather than creating risk, get in touch.
