The Policy Conversation
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The Policy Conversation
Before writing a policy, have the conversation. With your team, not at your team.
The questions worth discussing:
What are people actually using? You will likely be surprised. Shadow IT surveys consistently find broader AI tool adoption than managers assume. People are using tools they do not mention because they expect a negative reaction. Finding out what is actually in use — without punishing the disclosure — gives you an accurate picture to work from.
What are they using it for? There is a big difference between “I use Grammarly-style grammar checking” and “I paste client proposals into ChatGPT to improve them.” The former is low risk. The latter depends entirely on which client, what the proposal contains, and which tier of ChatGPT.
What would they need to stop doing it the risky way? Often the answer is: access to an enterprise tool that does the same thing. If your team has a Microsoft 365 subscription, Copilot for Microsoft 365 has data handling terms that consumer ChatGPT does not. If people are using consumer ChatGPT for document work because they have no alternative, the policy question is partly a procurement question.