Someone at your firm has already asked this question. Maybe not out loud, and maybe not to you.
They were staring down a client’s trial balance, or a set of statements that needed summarizing, or a memo that would take ninety minutes to write and twelve minutes to write with help. And they wondered — briefly, and then not so briefly — whether they could just paste it in.
Some of them wondered and stopped. Some of them didn’t.
You need an answer to this. Not a hedge, not a “we’re looking into it,” and not a blanket no that everyone quietly ignores. Here’s the honest one.
The Answer Depends on Which Door the Data Walks Through
The question “can we use AI with client data” doesn’t have one answer, because it isn’t really one question. It’s a question about where the tool sits.
A personal account is a different product than a company tenant. Same model, same interface, completely different agreement. When someone signs up with a personal email and a personal card, they’ve entered your firm into a consumer arrangement that nobody at the firm reviewed. Data handling, retention, whether inputs get used to improve the model, what happens if the account gets compromised, who can retrieve anything — all of that is governed by terms nobody read. And none of it is under your control.
A licensed business tenant is a commercial arrangement. Data handling is contractual. Retention is defined. You own the tenant, you control who’s in it, you can revoke access, and — this is the part that matters most — you can actually describe it to a client who asks. If your firm runs on Microsoft 365 and your people are on the right plan, you’re closer to a defensible answer than you think. i.t.NOW is a Microsoft Certified Partner, and one of the more common conversations we have with firms in Utah is that the tool they need is already sitting inside the license they’re paying for. They just haven’t turned it on the right way.
So the honest answer is: it depends on whether your people are working inside something you control, or outside it. Right now, in most firms, the answer is some of both — and nobody knows the split.
The Three Questions Your Staff Cannot Currently Answer
Not because they’re careless. Because nobody has told them.
“Is this tool approved?” If your firm has never named one, every person is making that call on their own, every week. And they’ll keep making it — and keep making it differently.
“Is this specific piece of information okay to put in?” There’s a real difference between a redacted excerpt, a public filing, and a client’s complete general ledger. Your people know that instinctively. What they don’t have is a line — an actual, written line — telling them where it sits. In the absence of a line, they guess. And they guess under deadline pressure, which is exactly when guessing gets expensive.
“Who do I ask when I’m not sure?” This is the one that quietly matters most. If the answer is nobody, then the default move when someone’s unsure is to proceed and not mention it. That’s precisely the situation you can’t afford — and it’s the one playing out in firms across the valley right now without anyone noticing.
Every one of those questions is answerable in a sentence. None of them are answered at your firm today.
The Reflex to Ban It Is the Expensive One
Confidentiality isn’t negotiable in this business. Neither is the human relationship your clients pay for — nobody wants to feel like their return got run through a machine.
But an outright ban doesn’t protect either of those things. It just moves the behavior to phones and home laptops, where you have zero visibility. And it hands a real advantage to the firm across town that took the time to do this properly.
As one Salt Lake City partner put it to us: “The way technology has grown, one person can’t keep up anymore. You need to specialize. I make money when I’m working with clients and not when I’m fixing PCs.” The same logic applies here. Firms that get this right aren’t spending less time on confidentiality — they’re spending less time on document review, research, first-draft memos, and the reconciliation work that eats a senior’s afternoon and generates zero client value. That’s billable capacity you’re currently spending on tasks a machine could carry, and it matters most during busy season, when you can’t hire your way out of the workload.
The firms getting this right didn’t compromise on confidentiality. They put a boundary around it, and then they moved.
What You Actually Need in Writing
Less than you think. This isn’t a compliance program.
- One approved tool, named. Ideally the one already inside the license you’re paying for.
- One page that spells out what client information may go into it, what may never, and what a person has to review before it leaves the firm. Plain language, not counsel’s language — because it has to get read on a busy Tuesday, not filed away.
- One name — the person to ask when the answer isn’t obvious, so “I wasn’t sure” ends in a question instead of a shortcut.
- One sentence you can say to a client who asks what your firm’s position on AI is. You will be asked. Better to have the sentence ready before it happens.
That’s the whole document. It takes an afternoon. And the day it exists, your firm stops being one where people are guessing, and starts being one where people are working inside a boundary you set.
Get the AI Acceptable Use Policy Starter Kit
A one-page, plain-language policy your team will actually read — plus the sanctioned-tool checklist, the data-classification lines to draw, and the answer to give a client who asks.
Written for firms handling confidential client information. Free.
Questions before then? Call i.t.NOW at (801) 562-8778 or email [email protected]. We’ve been the IT partner for Utah businesses since 1992, and this is one of the more common conversations we’re having with firm principals right now.
