While we have all seen the benefits using AI can bring to our businesses, there are also concerns about how our data is processed and how safe our data really is.
In this article we’ll discuss the importance of AI privacy, ways in which you can safely interact with AI, risks of data exposure and ways in which you can use AI safely within your business.
5 Different Ways to Engage with AI
There are number of different ways in which you can interact with AI:
1. Free Versions of Chat Tools
This includes popular tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, or Claude.
2. Subscription-Based Services
Upgrading to services like ChatGPT Plus or other custom GPTs usually involves paying a subscription fee.
3. Team Collaboration Tools
For example, ChatGPT Teams installation offers more collaborative features.
4. API Key Solutions
Using an API key to integrate AI into your systems.
5. Exploring Alternative API Keys
For instance, using Azure's API keys for more specialised needs.
Why Enterprise Solutions Matter
If you're serious about using AI in your business, you should be thinking about enterprise solutions.
People using ChatGPT3 are going to have minimal features that they can use, whereas if you look at ChatGPT+, you're going to be able to use the data analysis tool, use plugins, and get early access to beta features.
At the enterprise level, your data is not used to train models, and this is really key for privacy. You also get API credits to build your own solutions, along with features like shareable team templates, admin consoles, and domain verification.
All the things that you'd expect from having some kind of company or enterprise plan, you have added levels of security, whereas those using some form of ChatGPT you have little control over how people use the tools.
A Real-World Example
To demonstrate the points above; if I asked Claude AI, “Can you tell me about the Burberry fashion brand, their financials and their current market strategy? It outlined some information about their financials and current market strategy.
It has most been able to provide this information as it’s probably available online, like any other publicly traded company.
Imagine if your business information wasn’t so easily accessible online; but your team were using an LLM and importing data, analysing spreadsheets and asking it to summarise into a document.
Potentially all of that information could be used by an LLM to supplement information about your brand. Information that you may not want made available to the public. A good way to think of it is, would you be happy for the information to be on your website. If the answer is no, then you shouldn’t be sharing it with an LLM.
Protecting Your Businesses Information
When you use a non-API consumer service like ChatGPT, “we may use the data you provide to improve our models”. There is a way to turn this off by submitting a form, but it doesn't give you any confirmation this has been done, and you would need every individual to be able to do this.
So, how can you limit what AI knows about your business?
By using an API model, any of this data submitted to and generated by the API is not used to train the model, and so this is a preferred route that everyone should be thinking about if they want to use a non-AI LLM tool to review data, analyse data, and give them inputs across a business in a much more constructive way.
The Power of APIs
When thinking about using an API, you might want to consider using Microsoft Azure AI API.
This API allows you to contain the information on a server in a certain region. If your business is in a highly regulated industry, i.e., banking or healthcare, and you don’t want the information that you have to go across servers and across regions and using Azure's open API key you'd be able to define that as well.
These are different ways that you should be thinking about using an API key in a way to protect your data but use AI to the full advantage to help you bring more efficiencies and more insight into your business.
Using AI Safely for Your Business
So, let's recap the safest ways to use AI:
- Team collaboration tools like ChatGPT Teams are generally safe and your information is not going to be used to train other models.
- Creating your own solutions with API keys is a good choice
- For extra security, especially in regulated industries, explore options like Azure's API keys
In summary, you can use AI across your business and keep your content and information secure and private.
If you’d like to learn more about keeping your data secure while using AI, please get in touch today and we’ll be happy to help.
