Your business needs an AI Use Policy

Artificial intelligence has quietly become part of day-to-day business life. Whether your team is using it to draft emails, screen CVs, support customer queries, or crunch data, AI tools are no longer the preserve of large enterprises. And with that adoption comes a governance responsibility that many small businesses have not yet implemented.

The UK has deliberately avoided the kind of sweeping, prescriptive legislation seen in the EU. Rather than a single "UK AI Act", the government has opted for a principles-based, sector-led approach. The five cross-sector principles underpinning this approach are safety, transparency, fairness, accountability, and contestability.

A clear internal AI use policy is no longer optional; it is essential for meeting those obligations. Here are the key areas every small business should be thinking about.

Know what you are using

Before you can govern AI, you need to know where it lives in your business. Many organisations are surprised by the breadth of their AI footprint when they look properly, perhaps tools that have AI capabilities quietly built in. A simple record of what tools you use, what decisions they inform, and what data they touch is the essential first step.

Data protection and automated decisions

The most immediate compliance obligation for most UK businesses is the Data (Use and Access) Act 2025, which updated the UK GDPR rules on automated decision-making and has been in force since February 2026. Where AI systems make or meaningfully influence decisions about individuals, specific safeguards now apply, including transparency requirements, the right to human review, and the right to contest a decision.

Your policy needs to address how you will conduct risk assessments / DPIAs and mitigate AI risks (there are many!). You will also need to control how data is handled within the AI, what decisions are being made, and how you would respond if someone asked questions about it.

Transparency and accountability

Can you explain how your AI tools work, in plain terms, to a customer or regulator? If the honest answer is "not really", that is a risk worth taking seriously. Your policy should set out where AI is used in customer-facing or decision-relevant contexts, and what your approach to transparency looks like.

AI tools can and do make mistakes. Your policy should define which decisions require a human check before action is taken, and who in your business holds responsibility for oversight.

Staff training and AI literacy

Staff need to understand what the policy requires, why it matters, and what responsible use looks like in practice. Regulation in this area is moving fast, and a policy written today needs an owner to ensure it keeps pace with both your changing AI use and the regulatory environment.

How to write a policy

The regulatory landscape is complex because the regulations are distributed and vary by sector, tool type, and business model. A well-constructed AI use policy brings these threads together in a way that works for your specific circumstances.

Can you use AI to write an AI usage policy? Of course, just like you can use AI to write any document. But there are important considerations: do the documents contain personal data? Can you verify the result and is it accurate and up to date? Are you infringing on copyright ownership?

Strident's compliance team works with businesses across a range of sectors to build AI usage policies that are practical, proportionate, and future-ready for the regulatory direction of travel.

If you'd like to understand what a policy tailored to your business should cover, please get in touch today.