If your company has more than 20 employees using AI tools, and you don't have a written AI usage policy, you have a governance gap that's growing every month.
Why Do Companies Need an AI Usage Policy?
Three reasons: compliance risk (employees sending client data to AI tools), spend waste (no approved tool list means duplicate subscriptions), and liability (no documentation of how AI outputs are used in business decisions).
Most companies don't write an AI policy because it feels like a 3-6 month project costing $15K-$50K from a consulting firm. It doesn't have to be.
What Should an AI Usage Policy Cover?
A good AI policy has 10 sections:
- Purpose and scope — who it applies to and why
- Approved tools — what's sanctioned, by department, with costs
- Prohibited uses — industry-specific (HIPAA, privilege, SOC2)
- Budget authority — who can approve AI tool purchases and at what threshold
- Data handling — what data can and cannot be entered into AI tools
- Human review requirements — which AI outputs require human sign-off
- Exception process — how to request use of non-approved tools
- Training requirements — what employees need to know
- Compliance monitoring — how you enforce the policy
- Review cadence — when the policy gets updated
How Do You Create an AI Policy Without Spending $50K?
Coriven Proof auto-generates a 10-section AI usage policy from your actual tool inventory and industry classification. It pulls approved tools from your data, applies industry-specific prohibited uses (HIPAA for healthcare, privilege rules for legal), and flags sections that need human review. Generated in seconds, not months.