A conversation I\u2019m having more often with business owners goes something like this: \u201cWe don’t really use AI yet.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few questions later, it turns out somebody is using ChatGPT to help write emails.<\/p>\n
Someone else is summarizing meeting notes with an AI tool.<\/p>\n
Another person has found a browser extension that helps them create content faster.<\/p>\n
The business may not have formally adopted AI, but AI has arrived anyway.<\/p>\n
That’s not surprising.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The difficulty comes when nobody has stopped to agree where the boundaries are.<\/p>\n
Imagine a member of your team receives a long customer email and pastes it into a public AI tool to help draft a reply.<\/p>\n
The response comes back in seconds and saves them fifteen minutes of work.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow they do it again.<\/p>\n
A week later they upload a proposal because they want a summary.<\/p>\n
A month later somebody else is using a different AI tool to analyze a spreadsheet.<\/p>\n
At no point does anybody feel they’re doing something risky. They’re trying to work more efficiently.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
That can happen without any bad intentions.<\/p>\n
I’ve also noticed that AI spreads differently from other technologies.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
By the time a business starts thinking about an AI policy, people may already have their favorite tools and workflows.<\/p>\n
That creates an awkward situation.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Quite often, they feel they’re solving a problem rather than creating one.<\/p>\n
So, to get the most value from AI, have open conversations about it.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
That gives people enough freedom to benefit from the technology without accidentally creating risks for the business.<\/p>\n
If you’ve never asked your team which AI tools they’re using, the answers might surprise you.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a good place to start.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A conversation I\u2019m having more often with business owners goes something like…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":4431,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-richardson-blog"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t