You Already Use More AI Than You Think

Ask a small business owner how many AI tools the company uses and you'll hear "two or three." Then check the expense reports. There's the chatbot subscription on somebody's personal card. The AI notetaker that joined every client call last quarter. The design tool, the writing tool, the transcription tool — each adopted in about ninety seconds, none of them approved.

This is shadow AI, and it's not a story about bad employees. It's a story about useful tools moving faster than policy. The fix isn't punishment; it's an amnesty-powered inventory. Announce that nobody's in trouble, ask everyone to list what they use, and write it all down.

You can't govern what you can't see. The inventory always surprises people. Let it surprise you now, cheaply, instead of during an incident later.

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