Somebody at Your Company Pasted a Customer Quote Into a Public AI Tool This Week.

Not to do anything wrong. To save twenty minutes.

In most companies I talk to this is happening and the owner does not know. Not because he is not paying attention. Because nobody has had a reason to bring it up.

The Federal Reserve published the gap in April 2026. About 18% of American firms had adopted AI as of the end of last year. About 41% of workers were using it at work. The company has not adopted it. The people have.

Three questions will tell you where you stand. Ask them in this order, one by one. Does anybody use public AI tools for work? What have they put into it? Who decided that was acceptable?

The first usually gets a yes with a shrug. The second goes quiet, because nobody tracks it or they feel they did something wrong. The third is the one that matters, and in most companies under a hundred people the honest answer is that nobody decided anything.

There was no policy to break. There was a tool, a deadline, and somebody trying to do the job well.

That is not a discipline problem. It is a gap, and gaps are easy to close once you can see them.

A simple way to start this week. Ask the three questions in a short conversation with your office manager, your lead engineer, and whoever runs the shop floor. Do not make it an audit. Write down what you hear and name the tools. You will likely hear about tools you had never heard of. Do not decide anything yet.

The goal is to see the whole picture before you write a rule.

If you would like to work through these three questions with someone who has done it before, reach out to us. Email us at info@devconsultantsllc.com or call (201) 540-7762.