Your Team Already Has AI Access. Here's Why That Should Worry You (And What We're Doing About It)

I had a debate with my mate in the Scottish Government last week, his strong opinion was that “AI is dangerous in the wrong hands.”

Whilst I argued against him for a fair bit, I’ve concluded, he’s right.

Chances are your team already has access to AI tools. Microsoft Copilot came bundled with your Office 365 licenses. Someone’s using ChatGPT on their personal account. A few team members have discovered Claude or Perplexity. And absolutely nobody has received proper training on how to use them safely.

That’s not a technology problem. That’s a ticking time bomb.

What Could Actually Go Wrong?

Let me paint you a picture using the “intern analogy” I bang on about:

You wouldn’t give a new intern access to your entire client database without supervision, right? You wouldn’t put them in a position where they could accidentally CC your whole marketing list without someone checking first. And you’d brief them on GDPR, confidentiality, your brand voice, and company processes before letting them near anything customer-facing.

Yet that’s exactly what businesses are doing with AI tools right now.

Here’s what’s actually happening out there:

GDPR Nightmares: An employee asks Copilot to “summarise all client emails from the last quarter.” The AI pulls data it has access to across SharePoint, Teams, and Outlook - including sensitive client information - and generates a summary. That employee then copies it into an external tool or shares it inappropriately. Recent research shows over 15% of business-critical files are at risk from oversharing through AI tools, and 67% of enterprise security teams are concerned about AI exposing sensitive information.

Uncited Hallucinations: Your marketing team uses ChatGPT to draft a blog post about industry regulations. It sounds brilliant. It’s also partially made up. AI hallucinations - where the model confidently presents false information - remain one of the top AI concerns for businesses in 2025. Without proper verification processes, that goes live on your website and damages your credibility.

Data Leakage: Someone feeds your proprietary sales process into Claude to “help optimise it.” That data now exists in their training conversation. If they’re using a personal account rather than an enterprise version with proper data controls, you’ve just lost control of your intellectual property.

Shadow AI: Your team is using unauthorised AI tools you don’t even know about. Organisations increasingly lack visibility into these deployments, making it impossible to implement adequate data governance or security measures. This “shadow AI” trend is creating attack surfaces that security teams struggle to manage.

The US Congress banned staff from using Copilot due to data security concerns. The Italian Data Protection Authority temporarily banned ChatGPT until OpenAI complied with GDPR measures.

If governments are this worried, you should be too.

But Here’s the Thing:

AI tools aren’t the problem. Unmanaged AI deployment is the problem.

Done right, these tools are transformative. They remove the boring, repetitive tasks that drain your team’s time. They help people focus on higher-value work. They level the playing field for small businesses competing against larger competitors.

The difference between “dangerous in the wrong hands” and “genuinely game-changing” comes down to three things:

1. Proper setup and context - treating your AI tools like inexperienced co-workers, not magic boxes
2. Clear guardrails and governance - knowing what should and shouldn’t go through AI
3. Training and change management - bringing your team along rather than terrifying them

What We’re Building Together:

Over the next 10 weeks, we’re going to fix this properly.

I’m creating a practical, step-by-step framework for deploying LLMs across your small business - whether you’re using ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, or (most likely) you’ve already got Copilot sitting there unused because nobody knows how to use it safely.

This isn’t academic theory about neural networks and RAG pipelines. You don’t need to understand SMTP to send an email, and you don’t need a computer science degree to use AI effectively.

This is about systems, processes, and change management.

Here’s What’s Coming:

Weeks 1-3: Foundation (The Strategic Overview)

• Week 1: Why buying everyone licenses isn’t enough - the “treat it like an intern” framework
• Week 2: The business audit you need to do before deploying anything
• Week 3: Establishing guardrails, getting buy-in, and creating your pilot program

Weeks 4-10: Department-by-Department Implementation

• Week 4: Setting up your LLM architecture (using Perplexity Spaces as the example, but principles apply across all platforms)
• Week 5: HR setup - recruitment, onboarding, policy management
• Week 6: Marketing setup - brand voice, campaigns, content creation
• Week 7: Sales setup - proposals, client communication, pipeline management
• Week 8: Finance/Admin setup - bookkeeping, reporting, process documentation
• Week 9: Operations setup - workflows, project management, continuous improvement
• Week 10: Full rollout, monitoring, and building your internal AI champions

Each week, you’ll get:

• Practical frameworks you can implement immediately
• Real examples of what this looks like in practice
• Templates and checklists for your team
• Guardrails specific to that department
• What could go wrong and how to prevent it

The Tools We’ll Reference:

This framework works regardless of which platform you’re using:

• ChatGPT (OpenAI) - Best for creative tasks, brainstorming, flexible content generation
• Claude (Anthropic) - Strongest for coding, long documents, complex analysis, enterprise workflows with highest safety standards
• Perplexity - Unbeatable for real-time research with cited sources
• Microsoft Copilot - Already integrated with your M365 environment (and probably already deployed whether you planned for it or not)

The setup principles remain constant. Context, guardrails, and training matter more than which specific tool you choose.

Why This Matters Now:

AI regulations are tightening in 2025. The EU AI Act is in force. Data protection authorities are actively investigating AI companies for GDPR breaches. Organizations using AI without proper risk assessments face significant financial penalties.

More importantly: your competitors are figuring this out. The businesses that get AI implementation right - with proper governance, training, and systems - will have a genuine competitive advantage. Those that don’t will either avoid it entirely (and fall behind) or deploy it recklessly (and face the consequences).

There’s a better way.

What You Can Do This Week:

Before Week 1 drops, do this:

1. Audit what AI access your team already has - Check who’s got Copilot, who’s using personal ChatGPT accounts, what tools are in play
2. Document what worries you - What are your specific concerns about AI in your business?
3. Identify 2-3 enthusiasts - Who on your team is already experimenting with AI and excited about it? They’ll be your pilot program
4. Map your departments - Even if it’s informal, write down your org structure, who does what, where the workflows are

Next week, we start building the foundation properly.

Over to You:

Drop a comment: What’s your biggest concern about AI in your business? Data security? Team resistance? Not knowing where to start? Or have you already had a “near miss” moment that made you realise you need to get this sorted?

And if you want the full framework document before we kick off Week 1, give me a follow and send me a DM.

Let’s do this right.