Using ChatGPT and Copilot Safely at Work: An AI Policy Guide for Ontario Businesses

An office manager in Mississauga is behind on a client report. She pastes the whole draft, including client names and figures, into a free AI chatbot and asks it to tidy the wording. It works beautifully. It also means confidential information has just left the business, and nobody in management knows it happened.

This is what using AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot at work looks like in most small businesses. It’s rarely reckless. It’s people trying to save time. The goal isn’t to ban these tools, it’s to make using them safe.

Your staff are probably already using AI

According to IBM’s September 2025 study of office workers, 79% said they use AI at work, but only 25% rely on enterprise-grade tools supplied by their employer. The rest are using personal accounts and free tools. IBM calls this “shadow AI”, meaning AI use that your business hasn’t approved or can’t see. It’s a close cousin of the shadow IT problem we’ve written about before.

KPMG Canada’s surveys point the same way. Its November 2025 research found that 51% of Canadian employees use generative AI at work. An earlier KPMG Canada survey found that 24% of users had entered proprietary, non-financial company data into public AI tools, and 37% of employees were unaware of any controls their employer had set on AI use.

In plain English: if you haven’t told your team what’s allowed, they are making the rules up themselves.

Where the real risks are

Most of the danger comes down to a few everyday situations.

Pasting in confidential information. Free versions of many AI tools may keep what you type, and may use it to improve their models, depending on the provider and the account settings. Once client data is in a personal account, you can’t pull it back.

Trusting answers that are wrong. AI tools can sound confident and still be incorrect. A made-up statistic or a wrong legal reference in a proposal reflects on your business, not the software.

Over-sharing inside your own systems. Paid tools such as Microsoft 365 Copilot respect your existing file permissions. That’s good, but if everyone in your company can already open the payroll folder, Copilot can surface it for anyone who asks. Fixing permissions comes first.

Privacy law. Canada’s privacy regulators, including the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, published joint principles for generative AI in December 2023. They apply existing privacy law to AI and stress appropriate purposes, accountability, accuracy and safeguards. If personal information about clients, patients or employees goes into an AI tool, your obligations under PIPEDA (or PHIPA for health information) still apply.

What a sensible AI policy covers

You don’t need a 30-page document. One or two pages that people actually read is better. A good policy answers five questions:

• Which AI tools are approved, and for which tasks?
• What information must never be entered (client names, financial details, health records, passwords, contracts)?
• Do staff need to check AI output before it goes to a client?
• Must people use their work account rather than a personal one?
• Who do they ask if they’re unsure?

Industries with heavier confidentiality duties need to be stricter. Law firms and dental and healthcare practices, for example, should treat client and patient details as off-limits for any tool that hasn’t been formally assessed.

Choose business-grade tools, not free accounts

The simplest way to cut risk is to give people a better option than the free chatbot. Business versions of AI tools generally come with admin controls, clearer data-handling terms and sign-in through your company account. If you already use Microsoft 365, ask whether Copilot or the built-in protections in your plan meet your needs before buying anything new. Our guide to Microsoft 365 security hardening covers the settings worth getting right first.

Whatever you pick, read the provider’s terms on data retention and training, and switch on multi-factor authentication for every AI account.

What to do next

1. Ask, don’t accuse. Run a short, friendly survey or team chat: which AI tools are you using, and for what? You’ll learn more than any monitoring tool will tell you.
2. Write the one-page policy using the five questions above, and share it in a team meeting so people can ask questions.
3. Pick approved tools and make them easy to get. People turn to free tools when the approved route is slow.
4. Tidy up file permissions before turning on any AI assistant that searches your company data.
5. Review it every six months. The tools change quickly, and your policy should keep up.

If you’d like help with any of this, our cybersecurity and IT consulting teams help GTA businesses set sensible guardrails without slowing people down. A managed IT partner can also enforce the policy with device and account controls, rather than hoping everyone remembers it.

Take the next step

Not sure where your business stands? Book a free IT assessment or take our free IT health check (20 questions, about 4 minutes). You’ll get a clear picture of your biggest gaps, including how well your data is protected today.

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Related Posts

• Shadow IT: The Hidden Cybersecurity Risk Lurking in Your Ontario Business
• Microsoft 365 Security Hardening: A Practical Guide for Ontario Small Businesses
• PIPEDA Compliance for Ontario Small Businesses: What You Need to Know