The National Bureau of Economic Research recently found that 25% of American workers use AI tools weekly, with over 10% using them daily. Their uses are diverse, from marketing teams generating social media content to engineers creating design documentation, finance departments analyzing data, and HR teams screening resumes. While organizations are seeing benefits, those benefits must be carefully balanced with risk management. One ever-present concern is ensuring an organization’s confidential information is handled with due care. Inputting sensitive information into AI tools without fully understanding the confidentiality implications may raise concerns regarding obligations surrounding customer data, maintaining confidential status of financial information, strategic plans, or proprietary processes, or maintaining information with protected trade secret or privilege status. As lawyers counsel clients across sectors on technology adoption and risk management, they must understand how these tools handle confidential information and what safeguards are necessary to protect their clients’ most valuable assets.
LINKS
Read “Navigating Confidentiality Risks in Third-Party AI Tools“ authored by Andrew (A.J.) Tibbetts published in Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. (subscription)