Classify what you can share
Separate public material from internal business information, customer records, employee information, and passwords. Start with public or invented examples. Do not upload sensitive information until the tool, contract, permissions, and data handling have been reviewed for your situation.
Check the account and vendor
Use a business-owned account, multifactor authentication, and individual logins. Check the vendor’s current terms, retention settings, model training policy, and available deletion controls. A paid account alone does not establish that a tool is appropriate for your data.
Keep a person responsible
Choose an owner for each workflow. Require review before information goes to a customer, a public channel, or a system that changes records. AI-generated facts, calculations, links, and citations can be wrong. Confirm them against the source.
Limit connected access
Give tools only the data and actions the task needs. Treat instructions found in emails, documents, or websites as untrusted content. Start integrations in a test environment and confirm what happens on a timeout, duplicated request, or incorrect response.
Make a simple team agreement
Write down approved tools, allowed information, required review, and where to report a mistake. Review the agreement when the tool or workflow changes. This is an operational starting point, not legal, security, or industry compliance advice.