The Five Questions Before You Start Any AI Project

Before your team starts any AI project, gather around for fifteen minutes and answer these five questions.

One: what data will this touch? Name it specifically, not "customer data" in the abstract.

Two: do we have permission to use it this way? Permission given for one purpose doesn't automatically cover a new one.

Three: how long will the data be kept? If nobody knows, that's an answer too, and it's the wrong one.

Four: who gets to see the outputs? An AI summary emailed to the whole company is a different risk than one shown to a single analyst.

Five: what happens if it's wrong? Every system makes mistakes. Know the cost of one before it happens.

Write the answers down. Date them. Revisit them when the project changes.

Fifteen honest minutes up front saves months of cleanup later.

I explain frameworks; I don't give legal counsel.