Strategy · September 2025
AI at work: keeping company data safe when staff use ChatGPT
AI assistants are genuinely useful, and your staff are almost certainly already using them, with or without a policy.
Tools like ChatGPT can save real time. But every time someone pastes a client list, a contract, or internal data into a public AI tool, that information may leave your control.
The risk, in plain terms
Sensitive data entered into consumer AI tools can be stored, processed, or exposed in ways you did not intend, a particular problem for organizations that handle confidential client, donor, or patient information.
A sensible approach
- Set a simple policy: what is OK to put into AI tools, and what is never OK (client data, credentials, anything confidential)
- Offer a safe option: business-grade AI tools with stronger data protections, including those built into Microsoft 365
- Train, don't ban: outright bans just push usage into the shadows
AI is not going away. The organizations that win are the ones that use it deliberately, and safely.
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