Resources · Policy · Sent by email · Updated
AI USE POLICY STARTER FOR AUSTRALIAN BUSINESSES
Your team is already using AI. Here is a plain-English policy so they use it with rules.
What's inside
- 1
Eleven short clauses covering data, confidentiality, review and disclosure
- 2
The never-paste list, the part your team will actually remember
- 3
A ten-point readiness checklist for rolling it out
If you would rather have this done with you than to you, this is the work I do. See services
Written for a business, not a legal department
This is a starting policy in plain English, covering what staff can put into public AI tools, what has to stay out, who approves new tools, and what to do when something goes wrong. It pairs well with running a session with the team first. It is deliberately short. A policy nobody reads protects nobody, and a fifteen-page document written by a law firm is a policy nobody reads.
Adapt the confidentiality section
The one part you should not use unchanged is what counts as confidential. That depends on your contracts, your sector and your clients. Everything else is broadly portable across Australian businesses, and AI adoption work usually starts here; that section is not.
COMMON QUESTIONS
Is this a legally binding AI policy?
It is a starting template, not legal advice. It gives you a working position that covers the common risks, and it is worth having a lawyer look at the confidentiality and client-data sections before you formalise it in employment terms.
Our team already uses AI without a policy. Is it too late?
No, and that is the usual situation. Staff adopt these tools before any policy exists. Writing one now is about setting boundaries around behaviour that is already happening rather than preventing something that has not started.
Does this cover using AI on client work?
It covers the principles: what can be shared, what needs disclosure, and who signs off. Whether you must tell a client that AI was used depends on your contracts with them, which is why that section needs your own review.