AI governance and security
Your staff are already using AI. Probably three different tools, on personal accounts, with company information going into all of them. The question is whether you can see it.
You can block the apps. You can't block the search bar
We can block the consumer AI tools, and for some clients we do. What nobody can block is AI sitting at the top of every search result your staff already use dozens of times a day.
So a prohibition just moves the activity somewhere you can't see it. The people most likely to route around the rule are the ones getting the most value from breaking it.
A written policy is worth having, and we will give you ours. But a policy on its own is a document, not a control. The thing that actually changes behavior is giving people a better sanctioned option than the one they are using now.
Four things, and only one is a document
One place, not five
Your team reaches the leading models through a single managed platform instead of a personal account each. That is the precondition for governing any of it.
Controls you set
Who can reach which systems, and what a person is allowed to connect. Requests to widen access come to you rather than being decided by whoever wanted it.
Work that survives the person
What someone builds gets shared with the team instead of living in their private chat history and leaving when they do.
Identity you already control
Governing AI means governing access, and access lives in the identity and systems we already manage for clients. This is the part a firm outside your environment cannot do for you.
How we tackle AI security
AI security for a business splits in two: what your people put into AI, and what attackers now do with it. Governance handles the first half. The security stack underneath handles the second.
Data that stays yours
The biggest AI security risk in a small business is company information flowing into personal AI accounts nobody can see. The governed workspace removes the reason to use the workaround: one place to work, controls over what it reaches, and nothing left worth routing around.
Identity first
AI access rides on the same identity we secure everywhere else: multi-factor authentication (a second check on every sign-in) and rules for who can connect what. Widening access is a decision you make, never a default someone slips past you.
The attacks coming the other way
AI made phishing cheaper and more convincing. Defense against impersonation, lookalike domains, and wire-fraud patterns sits in the managed security layer this governance work sits on top of.
The AI acceptable use policy, written for a real company
Most templates you'll find are legal boilerplate that says very little about personal accounts or the tools people are actually using. Ours covers the shadow-AI problem, because that is the part that bites. Written in language your team will follow rather than skim.
When it arrives, read it against what your team actually uses. If you want it tailored to how your business works, we'll walk through it with you.
The questions people ask about AI at work
- Should we just ban ChatGPT and the other AI tools?
- You can, and for some clients we do block the consumer apps. It doesn't end the problem, because AI now sits at the top of every search result your staff already use, and the people getting the most value from a tool are the ones who route around the rule. A ban with nothing behind it is how you get shadow AI. What holds is a sanctioned option that's better than the workaround.
- What should an AI acceptable use policy include?
- The parts most templates skip. Personal accounts, which are the biggest leak. Which tools are sanctioned and which aren't. What company information may and may not go into a prompt. And what happens to the things people build, so useful work doesn't live in one person's chat history. Written in language people will follow rather than skim. Ours covers all of that, and it's free above.
- What are the biggest AI security risks for a small business?
- Three, in the order they actually bite. Company information leaking through personal AI accounts nobody can see. Access sprawl, where tools get connected to business systems without anyone approving it. And phishing that AI made cheaper and more convincing, coming at your team from the outside. The first two are governance problems with governance fixes: one managed workspace, controls on what connects, identity that's already secured. The third lands on the email and security stack underneath.
- What is shadow AI?
- AI your staff use for work without anyone approving it or being able to see it: personal accounts, free tools, company information pasted in to get the job done faster. It's the same pattern as shadow IT a decade ago, spreading faster because the tools are free and sit at the top of every search page. The problem is the invisibility, not the enthusiasm.
Get AI use under control before it's a problem
Book 30 minutes with a strategic advisor to talk through what your team is already using and how to put governance around it.