AI Acceptable-Use Policy
Also known as: AI use policy, Employee AI policy
Definition
An AI acceptable-use policy tells employees which AI tools are approved, what data cannot be entered, when output needs review, how customer-facing work is handled, and how to request or report AI use cases. It should be practical enough for daily work.
The best acceptable-use policies are short, specific, and easy to apply. Employees should not need a legal memo to decide whether a workflow is allowed.
The policy should be reviewed whenever tools, workflows, or risk conditions change.
Related terms
- AI Governance — The rules, owners, review standards, and escalation paths that let a company use AI safely and consistently.
- Human-in-the-Loop — A workflow design where a person reviews, approves, corrects, or escalates AI output before sensitive action is taken.
- Shadow AI — Employee use of AI tools without company visibility, approval, data rules, or review standards.
Where this gets applied
- Process Documentation — Sales process, customer success playbooks, technical runbooks, financial close calendars, hiring rubrics.
- Team & Hiring — Org design for scale, comp band rationalization, hiring rubrics with 92% accuracy across 40+ hires.
- Compliance & Security — SOC 2, CMMC, FedRAMP, security baselines for post-acquisition standardization.