Course 10 · Lesson 2 of 8

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Writing an AI Usage Policy People Follow

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A good policy is short, specific, and enabling — not a legal wall of "thou shalt not." It tells people what they CAN do, with which tools, and the few hard lines they must never cross.

What a usable policy covers

  1. Approved tools + tiers (with data controls) — and which to use for what.
  2. Hard "never paste" list: customer PII, secrets, unreleased financials, NDA material.
  3. When human review is mandatory (anything customer-facing or shipped).
  4. Attribution + ownership — AI-assisted work is still the author’s responsibility.
  5. Where to share what works — prompts, wins, gotchas.
The data line is non-negotiable

Under DPDP and most contracts, the company is still responsible for personal data even after it’s pasted into a third-party tool. Make the "never paste" list crystal clear and use enterprise tiers with data-use controls for real work.

Enable, then guardrail

Lead with "here’s how to get value safely," not "here’s everything that’s forbidden." A policy people resent is a policy people route around.

Takeaway

Keep the policy short and enabling: approved tools, a hard "never paste" list, mandatory-review cases, ownership, and a place to share learnings.