Write one page of AI rules before your team writes its own

If you own or manage a small or mid-sized business, I believe you should write your AI house rules now, before informal habits become the way your team works. You do not need a policy project that takes months. Start with one page that answers the questions people face when they open an AI assistant.

My advice is to assume experimentation may already be happening, including on personal accounts. That is a more useful starting point than assuming nobody uses AI because management has not introduced it. In my view, a blanket ban is unlikely to settle the matter, while silence leaves employees to decide for themselves what is acceptable. I would rather give people clear boundaries than rely on either approach.

Start by naming the approved tools and the accounts people must use. Permission to use an assistant should not leave someone guessing whether their personal login is acceptable. If you have not approved a tool, say who can approve it. For a small team, that might be the owner or one designated manager. The important thing is that there is a clear route to an answer.

Then spell out what must never go into a prompt: customer data, contracts, passwords and anything confidential. Do not make employees interpret a vague instruction to be careful. I would make this boundary explicit even if it feels obvious. A convenient way to finish a task is not, in my view, a good reason to make an exception on the spot.

Next, define the human check. My starting rule would be that anything AI helps produce must be reviewed before it reaches a customer or informs a business decision. Name who is responsible for that review. For a customer email, someone should check the facts, tone and promises. For a recommendation, someone should examine the assumptions and reasoning. A polished answer is not a substitute for that work.

Include a simple expectation that people say when AI helped. I would keep this practical rather than ceremonial: tell the colleague reviewing the work, and make sure the person responsible for its use knows. The point is to make the process visible, not to embarrass anyone for using a useful tool.

Keep the page short enough to read and specific enough to act on. Review it every few months. When someone asks whether a task or tool is allowed, treat the question as useful feedback. I would rather discover an unclear boundary through a conversation than leave it unresolved because asking feels risky.

Devmojos helps businesses adopt AI, and I believe a clear page of rules makes adoption faster, not slower. It gives people a place to start, a boundary they can understand and someone to ask when the next unfamiliar situation arrives.