Like many innovational tools, AI was quickly adopted by businesses of all sizes with the hopes of streamlining operations, enhancing output, and much more.
While AI can be an incredibly helpful tool at work and at home, businesses should be wary of getting swept up in the excitement and forget how important it is to review the tools used within your operations. Any hasty product adoption, no matter the potential benefits, can potentially mean that the proper safety protocols get missed, allowing security holes to open up in your business operations.
For business leaders, it’s important to take a step back and ensure the safety of your employees, company, and clients. Not only is your company’s security at stake but so is your clients’ trust.
Asking the right questions before implementing new products and software can ensure that your company stays secure with the right AI systems and policies. Here’s the list:
What is the company planning to use AI for?
There’s a variety of AI models to choose from, so having a strong vision for what results you want from your AI tools makes it easier to know what to invest in. Tokens and license prices can build up quickly, so utilize your resources wisely by researching your different options before committing.
Evaluate:
- Which tasks will AI be used for?
- Do you have expectations for how much improvement your team expects from these new tools?
- What metrics will be used to track usage and ROI?
- Who will potentially be using these AI tools?
- How many people?
The lineup of questions may seem excessive, but knowing these specific answers will aid in setting up the right policies for your company and ensuring that you’re not overspending on tools.
Knowing how AI should be affecting company workflows can also mitigate the misuse of AI either intentionally or unintentionally. We’ll go into that next.
What AI policies will you have in place?
All businesses that use AI also need guidelines on what kinds of company data should be shared with AI models, which AI models are permitted for company use, what classifies as employee misuse of company AI tools, etc.
An employee using an unregulated AI tool can gain access to sensitive company information that they otherwise wouldn’t be able to. Without proper implementation, AI tools can easily navigate a company’s data and IT infrastructure, take sensitive information, and give it to any user who asks.
An AI doesn’t always know exactly who is requesting this information and will give it freely because it’s been programmed to. However, establishing user policies that prevent AI models from accessing certain information and prevent certain user access can make business AI models safer to use and is key for building best practices and protecting sensitive data.
Is proprietary information protected?
Do your company AI tools have protocols against unlimited user access to private company data or other users’ credentials?
Ensuring that sensitive company and client information is secure is paramount, and unrestricted AI models may be able to easily access important credentials without limits in place. Knowing who in the company should be able to access certain information can save everyone a lot of trouble.
Should all users be allowed to download code?
Downloading a document from an AI model is one thing, but downloading and implementing script coded from an AI system is another. Without express permission from an IT technician, trying to alter a company’s IT infrastructure with code from an AI model can severely impact a business’ cyber safety.
Even the addition of AI code by an employee with good intentions can disrupt operations and damage established security systems. Code in particular has the possibility of significantly impacting a company’s IT infrastructure in unknown ways that can also spread. The inner workings of a company’s network is more complex than one can imagine, made of interlocking parts that are best left undisturbed.
Chances are that most employees have no need to alter their company’s infrastructure in their day-to-day, so it would be a good idea to keep downloading code an option for IT employees only.
Do users know to verify results?
Even with significant advancements, AI is still prone to hallucinations and not all output is 100% reliable. As a business user, it is important to review details before deployment to clients or partners as with all of your work (hopefully).
This is essential to avoid potential oversights due to an AI error, which can lose customer trust and business credibility. Use all tools responsibly!
Are employees using AI with their personal accounts?
It may sound harmless enough, but when employees use their personal AI account to analyze or access company data, they can unwittingly create a leak of company information.
When implementing AI, use company AI accounts that can be monitored and better secured. Personal AI accounts may not have the same safety precautions and can even share company data with external parties.
Are all users aware of general AI cyber-risks?
General cybersecurity awareness training for businesses should now include the impact of AI-powered threats such as deepfakes, misuse of AI tools, data privacy, and more.
It takes more than one IT department to protect a business; everyone within the company should be made aware of how they can keep themselves safe from cyber-threats.
The Take Away
AI isn’t the first tool to revolutionize the business world, and it’s not the first tool to introduce new benefits and new hazards to the world either. Everyone should learn to be responsible with how they use AI especially at the workplace.
For more info about safe AI practices for your business, talk to our experts about how to safely use AI to better your business!