What you should never paste into it.

The one thing to get right before you get comfortable. Five minutes now saves a very bad conversation later.

The short version

Assume anything you type into a free consumer AI account could be read by a human at that company, or used to train the next model. That is usually not true anymore on paid business plans — but assume it anyway, because you will not remember which account you were logged into at 11pm.

So the rule is not "never use AI with real work." That advice is useless and nobody follows it. The rule is: know which of your information is replaceable and which is not.

The four things that actually matter

Most business information is boring and fine. These four are not.

Anything with a person's identitySocial security numbers, dates of birth, driver's licence or passport numbers, full bank or card numbers. Not "risky" — just don't.

Health informationIf you're a medical or dental practice, patient information is regulated. A standard consumer AI account is not a HIPAA-covered service, and pasting a chart into one is a reportable event.

Anything under privilege or NDALaw firms: client matters. Everyone else: the contract you signed promising not to share their information. AI is not an exception written into that contract.

CredentialsPasswords, API keys, the contents of your .env file. These get pasted into chat windows constantly and it is the single most common way small companies get breached.

The test that works.

Before pasting, ask: if this exact text showed up in a screenshot in someone else's newsletter, would I have a problem? If yes, redact it first. That question takes two seconds and catches nearly everything.

Redacting is easier than avoiding

You almost never need the real names for the AI to be useful. It does not need to know the patient is Margaret Chen — it needs to know a 68-year-old patient missed two appointments. Replace and go:

Here is a client email. I have replaced names with [CLIENT], our staff with [STAFF], and dollar amounts with [AMOUNT]. Draft a reply that is warm but firm about the deadline. [paste the redacted email]

Find-and-replace in a text editor takes ten seconds and removes the entire problem. If you're doing it often, that's a sign the task is worth automating properly — which is a different conversation.

Turn off training, once

Every major provider lets you stop your conversations being used to improve their models. It's a single setting and it applies going forward.

ChatGPT — Settings → Data controls. Business and enterprise plans are excluded by default.
Claude — consumer conversations aren't used for training by default; check Settings → Privacy for the current state of your account.
Gemini — Settings → Activity. Workspace accounts are handled under your organisation's terms.

Providers change these controls fairly often. Look at yours today rather than trusting a guide — including this one.

If you're regulated, buy the business plan

For medical, legal, and financial practices, the paid business tiers exist specifically for this. They come with contractual terms about how your data is handled, and for healthcare the providers will sign a BAA. The gap between a $20 personal seat and a business seat is small; the gap in what you're allowed to do with it is not.

This is worth twenty minutes with whoever handles your compliance. It is not worth guessing about.

Before you close this tab

Turn off model training on whichever account you actually use.
Decide your one redaction convention — [CLIENT], [STAFF], [AMOUNT] — and use it every time.
If you're in a regulated field, put "check AI terms" on this week's list.

What this isn't

This is a practical guide from people who build these systems, not legal advice. If you operate under HIPAA, attorney-client privilege, or financial regulation, your compliance obligations are specific to you and worth an actual professional's time.

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