Let’s be honest: AI is already in your workplace—whether it’s officially sanctioned or not. Marketing employees are using ChatGPT to draft content; sales teams are exploring AI tools to personalize emails; HR is likely experimenting with AI-enhanced screening.
Innovation is exciting but also risky, especially without a clear AI policy in place across the organization. Too often, someone in a department creates a policy, and that doesn’t resonate across the enterprise. In fact, many companies think they have a policy and say, “we don’t use AI,” but they just don’t realize everyone is using it anyway.
Here’s What We Hear
• “We know we need an AI policy, but we don’t know where to start exactly.” Well, it’s not just legal and IT that’s using AI… you might have a policy, but who follows it after reading it and putting it in a folder?
• “Our teams are already using AI tools, and we’re unsure where the line is, for example, how to communicate with partners, customers, and even consistently to employees… and we don’t see our partners sharing this information with us either.”
• “We say we want to be transparent, but we don’t even know what we’re doing with it yet, let alone talk about our use of it.”
• “We’re concerned about privacy and ethics, but I don’t think our employees know how AI fits into our specific departments, let alone operations (i.e., company values, how we talk about it ourselves).”
Problem Isn’t Just Legal
Most companies aren’t trying to deceive anyone. They’re trying to innovate and stay competitive. But without frameworks, it’s easy for well-meaning teams to make mistakes—from copying proprietary content into an AI tool to create biased outputs that ultimately damage your reputation (and brand).
What’s missing is a common language around AI use, internal procedures and practices, leadership and manager awareness, and messaging. Hint: it is cultural and communications.
Help To Get It Going
I’ve developed a workshop (or, if needed, a self-guided workbook) that will help small- to mid-size organizations define how they use AI—clearly, responsibly, and transparently. I designed it for companies that need a thoughtful approach to creating customizable templates, basic messaging, and manager training.
I won’t give you legal advice, but I will give you clarity, structure, and prepared communications. We know what it is and why it’s important to have something in place, such as thinking through the complex issues of privacy and ethics to create strategies and policies/procedures. But it’s important to know how to ensure communications are also in place. If you are feeling pressure to “do something” about AI before it becomes a problem, I can help you get started.
