One-page AI policy template for small businesses
Six rules your team can read in two minutes and follow without having to ask you. Version 2: tested against five real situations by an AI, which found a gap we fixed (job applicants are now covered).
How to use it
- Copy or download the page, then replace every [BRACKET] with your tools, your owner and your dates.
- Run the stress-test prompt on five situations from your own week and fix any rule it finds unclear.
- Read it together at your next team meeting (fifteen minutes) and set a review date six months out.
One-page AI policy — [COMPANY]
Version 2 · [DATE] · Owner: [NAME, ROLE] · Next review: [DATE + 6 MONTHS]
Why: we use AI to save time on drafts, summaries and research. Never to cut corners on accuracy, privacy or respect for our clients.
1. Tools
- Approved: [TOOL + account type], [TOOL].
- Client work: approved tools only, with your work account, never a personal one.
- New tool? Ask [OWNER] first.
2. Data: green, yellow, red
- GREEN (public: website, published prices, job posts): any approved tool.
- YELLOW (internal, no personal details: procedures, drafts, numbers without names): approved tools only.
- RED (personal information about anyone: clients, employees, job applicants; health, banking, ID numbers, passwords, anything under a confidentiality agreement): never in an AI tool, unless [OWNER] approved that tool for it in writing.
3. Human review
A person reads every AI output before it leaves the company: facts, numbers, names, promises. Whoever sends it owns it.
4. Decisions about people
AI can help prepare, sort or summarize. It never decides alone about a person (hiring, discipline, credit, an individual client's price or file). A person makes the call.
5. Telling clients
If a client is talking to an AI (website chat, phone, email), it says so up front and shows how to reach a person.
6. Owner and mistakes
- Owner: [NAME, ROLE].
- Mistake with RED data? Tell [OWNER] the same day. No blame: we fix it fast.
Review every six months, and whenever we add a tool.
Go further
- Prompt: draft your one-page AI policyGive an AI assistant your answers and get a one-page AI policy back, with “to be decided” wherever you haven't decided yet and a list of the questions you still need to answer.See the prompt
- Prompt: stress-test your AI policy on real situationsAsk an AI to judge five real situations against your AI policy, quoting the rule each time. It shows you where your team would hesitate, before it happens.See the prompt
Take action with an expert
A working session on your real processes, with a concrete plan at the end.