A new report has recently raised serious concerns about how employees are unknowingly putting their companies at risk by sharing all the sensitive information with ChatGPT and other AI tools.
The study also sheds light on the fact that many workers also use AI chatbots to write emails, summarise official reports, or even create presentations, all of it without realising that they might be causing data leaks through ChatGPT.
According to the report, employees may also often paste internal data, personal client details, or even confidential project information into ChatGPT so that they can get quick answers or get guidance on better writing suggestions.
However, once this data is entered, it could easily be stored or also be used to train AI models, thus increasing the ChatGPT company’s data risk.
Experts also warn that this could lead to unintentional leaking of employees data, which can later lead to major legal and financial effects on businesses.
The issue arises due to lack of awareness. Many people don’t fully understand how AI tools handle their information that they provide. They also assume that whatever they type or write on AI tools is private, but that’s not always the case.
In some cases, accidental data exposure has also been reported in some famous companies. For example, an employee might paste a piece of source code, a confidential email, or even a contract draft into ChatGPT for rewriting.
If that data is stored or reviewed in the database for AI improvement, it could create a company confidentiality breach.
Security experts are also calling this a growing AI data security challenge. They tend to explain that when AI tools collect data from users, that information can easily be accessed by others or can be used to generate future responses.
Even if the AI company says that it anonymised data, the risk remains if the content includes unique or private details.
To manage this issue, several large organisations have now set up some good and strict rules on using ChatGPT and similar tools. Some have completely banned employees from using public AI chatbots for any work-related things.
Others have even created internal AI systems that are safer to use and have been trained only on the data that has been approved by the company. These private systems also help to reduce ChatGPT corporate risk while still allowing employees to enjoy the benefits of AI.
Experts also advise various companies to train employees about what information they are allowed to share and what they aren’t with the AI tools. Things like financial records, personal customer details, source code, or internal strategies should always stay within the company’s secure systems.
In short, this report is an important warning for all businesses that while AI tools can act as a major boost to productivity, they also tend to bring new risks. Employees must stay alert, and companies must ensure that data leaks via ChatGPT don’t turn into a major company data risk in the future.
