Behind the prompt: what happens when you use AI?
AI has quickly become part of everyday work. Employees use it to write emails, summarise documents, analyse information, generate ideas and speed up administrative tasks. In many organisations, AI is probably already being used in more places than management or IT realises.
Using AI has also become incredibly easy. Open a tool, enter a question and within seconds you have an answer.
But that ease of use can create a false sense of simplicity. What information are you sharing with the AI? What happens to that information? Can you trust the answer? And what happens when AI is connected to your organisation’s systems?
These are becoming increasingly important questions as AI is given access to more information, systems and tasks.
A confident answer is not necessarily a correct one
Generative AI can produce remarkably convincing answers. Unfortunately, convincing does not always mean correct.
AI systems can make mistakes, misunderstand context or provide information that sounds plausible but is inaccurate. How much that matters depends heavily on what you are using AI for.
There is a big difference between asking AI to suggest a title for a presentation and asking it to draw conclusions from a customer file.
That is why human oversight remains important. Not every AI generated sentence needs to be checked, but organisations and employees should understand when verification is necessary.
Think before you upload
Imagine an employee wants help summarising a lengthy customer case. The easiest option is to upload the entire document to an AI tool.
Convenient? Absolutely.
But what information was contained in that document? Were there names, contact details, financial information or other confidential data? Which AI service was used? Is that information stored or used for other purposes?
The answers depend on the AI system, the type of account, its settings and the agreements your organisation has with the provider.
Organisations should therefore set clear rules about which AI tools employees can use and what information can be shared with them. This reduces the risk of employees unknowingly using unsuitable tools or sharing information in ways that could expose confidential or sensitive data.
What if AI can take action itself?
Until recently, using generative AI mainly meant asking a question and receiving an answer. With the rise of AI agents, that is changing.
AI agents can potentially perform tasks on behalf of a user. Depending on their permissions, they may be able to browse websites, read documents, use applications or retrieve information from company systems.
That can save a great deal of time, but it also creates a different type of risk.
Consider an AI agent connected to your email and document storage. To perform its job, the agent needs access to information. But that access can also create vulnerabilities.
One relevant example is prompt injection. An AI agent may encounter instructions hidden in a website, email or document it is processing. Those instructions can attempt to manipulate the AI into doing something its user never asked it to do.
An attacker is then not necessarily trying to fool the employee. They may be trying to fool the AI working for that employee.
This becomes particularly relevant when that AI can access confidential information or perform actions in other systems. The more an AI system is allowed to do, the more carefully its access and permissions need to be managed.
AI can also be used against your organisation
There is another side to the story. Organisations are not the only ones benefiting from increasingly capable AI.
Attackers can use AI too.
AI can help research potential targets, create convincing phishing messages, analyse information and identify possible vulnerabilities. European cybersecurity organisations have warned that generative AI can make certain parts of cybercrime faster and easier, even for people with relatively limited technical skills.
This means organisations should not only consider how they use AI themselves. Existing cybersecurity measures also need to account for attackers who can use AI to work faster and at a larger scale.
You do not need to become an AI expert
Responsible AI use does not mean that every employee needs to understand exactly how a large language model works.
They do, however, need enough knowledge to recognise the risks relevant to their work.
Can I enter customer information into this tool? Should I check this answer before using it? Does this AI have access to company data? Can it perform an action without my approval? And what should I do if something unexpected happens?
This is where AI literacy becomes important.
Under Article 4 of the EU AI Act, providers and deployers of AI systems must take measures to ensure a sufficient level of AI literacy among staff and other people dealing with AI systems on their behalf. What is sufficient depends on factors such as their knowledge, experience, training and the context in which the AI is used.
AI literacy is therefore about more than teaching employees how to write a good prompt. It is about giving people enough understanding to use AI consciously and responsibly.
If you are unsure which AI Act requirements apply to your organisation, or what they mean in practice, the Compliance Scan can be used as a first step. It helps you identify your role under the AI Act and the requirements that may apply to your organisation.
Understanding what you use
AI can make everyday work faster and easier, but responsible use starts with understanding the tools you introduce into your organisation. That means knowing what information they process, what they can access, where their limitations lie and when human oversight is needed.
The same applies to security. As AI becomes more useful to organisations, it also becomes more useful to those looking for ways into their systems.
You do not need to understand every technical detail behind AI. But if a tool is being used within your organisation, there should be a clear understanding of what it does, what it has access to and how it should be used. That is a practical starting point for using AI responsibly and safely.
Want to Learn More?
If you want to dive deeper into AI compliance, risk management, or the EU AI Act, check out:
📚 Our latest articles on AI compliance.
❓ Our FAQ section for answers to common questions.
Still have questions? 📩 Get in touch with us today.
Because when it comes to compliance, waiting is the real risk.