A policy nobody reads protects nobody. Here is how to write one that is short, clear, and useful enough that people reach for it.
Most AI use policies fail for the same reason. They are long, written in legal language, and filed somewhere nobody looks. A policy only works when people can find it, read it, and act on it in a minute.
Cover the essentials and nothing more. Which tools are approved. What data can and cannot go into them. When a person must review the output. How to protect privacy. That is the core, and it maps cleanly to the Govern and Manage functions of the NIST AI Risk Management Framework, which many teams use as their backbone.
Write in plain English. If a new hire cannot understand a rule on the first read, rewrite it. Examples help more than definitions. Show what good use looks like and what to avoid.
Name the tools and the data rules explicitly. The most common way sensitive information leaks is not a breach. It is a well meaning employee pasting private data into a consumer tool. A clear list of approved tools and a short list of what must never be entered prevents most of that.
Require human review where it counts. For hiring, benefits, safety, legal, and financial decisions, a person owns the outcome. State it plainly so there is no ambiguity when it matters.
Set the policy before you scale, not after. It is far easier to establish good habits early than to correct shadow use once it has spread. Adopt the policy, train your team once, and revisit it every six months as your work grows. Our free AI Use Policy Template and Governance Checklist give you both the document and the review steps.
Sources
- AI RMF Playbook · National Institute of Standards and Technology