Put clear boundaries around staff use of AI tools

Many teams are already using AI tools for drafting, research, coding, customer communications or internal admin, often before the business has set clear rules. That can create issues around confidential information, accuracy, ownership of outputs, and whether staff are relying on tools in situations where human review is still needed. A written policy helps set expectations across the business. It can explain which tools are approved, what information must never be entered, when manager sign-off is required, and how AI-generated work should be checked before use.

A policy often covers approved and prohibited AI tools, acceptable use cases, restrictions on entering confidential or personal information, review and approval steps, record-keeping expectations, ownership and use of AI-generated outputs, and staff responsibilities if something goes wrong. It may also deal with external-facing content, coding assistance, customer support use, and whether employees can use personal AI accounts for work. The exact wording depends on your business practices, because the legal position depends heavily on how information is handled in practice, not just what the policy says on paper.

A general IT or device policy usually deals with access, hardware, networks and acceptable system use. An AI use policy goes further into tool-specific issues such as prompts, generated outputs, checking for errors or bias, confidentiality risks, and whether staff can rely on AI content in client, customer or internal decision-making. It can also address ownership and reuse of outputs, plus approval pathways for higher-risk uses. In many businesses, the AI policy works alongside existing policies rather than replacing them, because each document deals with a different set of operational risks.

Usually we need a practical picture of how AI is currently used or likely to be used in the business. That may include which tools staff access, what kinds of information they enter, whether outputs are used internally or externally, who approves higher-risk uses, and whether there are existing privacy, confidentiality or workplace policies that need to align with the new document. Once we have those details, we can draft a policy that reflects your operations. Timing depends on how quickly instructions and background documents are provided.

Sometimes a template helps you spot the main headings, but it will not always reflect how your team actually uses AI. For example, a business using AI in software development, marketing, support workflows or internal knowledge systems may need very different rules from a business using it only for low-risk admin tasks. The contract should reflect the practical arrangement, not just a generic precedent or one-sided checklist. A generic template may miss approval steps, prohibited data inputs, or the need for human review before outputs are shared or relied on.

Just submit an enquiry via this page or click the 'get started' button on our website to submit an enquiry. After you've submitted an enquiry, one of our legal consultants will review your enquiry within 1 business day and get in touch to get a better idea of exactly what you are looking for.

Then your legal consultant will send through an email with a bit more information about the services you need, along with a fixed fee quote setting out costs, scope of the service and timing. Have a read through it, and if you're happy with the scope, you can accept and sign our engagement letter online - easy!

Once you've formally accepted, we'll connect you with a specialist lawyer and they will work with you to complete your project. They will contact you by email or phone if they need to get in touch.

Sprintlaw works on fixed-fee pricing wherever possible, so you can review the scope and cost before you decide whether to proceed. For the Employee AI Use Policy service, pricing starts from $900.00.

After you enquire, a legal consultant will confirm what is included, the expected timing and whether any extra work is needed before you engage us.

We operate completely online, which means we can help you wherever you are in New Zealand. We have office spaces in Sydney, and in Melbourne, but our use of technology allows our team members to work remotely from around the world. Our legal team are mostly based in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth. We also have a London office for Sprintlaw UK.

Our legal team is made up of experienced lawyers, who are specialists in various areas of law and hold an Australian legal practising certificate. None of our Sprintlaw lawyers are New Zealand qualified lawyers and they do not currently hold a New Zealand practising certificate.

They provide legal services working remotely from Australia via our 'legal consultancy' model, through which (under section 6 and section 35 of the New Zealand Lawyers and Conveyancers Act 2006) our Australian legal team are permitted to provide legal services to New Zealand businesses provided they do not provide services in certain 'reserved' areas of law. You can read our FAQ page to learn a bit more about our 'legal consultancy' model.

Given the strong similarities between Australian and New Zealand law, and the areas of law in which we practice (being small business and startup law), we do not view the fact that our lawyers have not qualified in New Zealand as having any substantive impact on the quality of our service. We are committed to ensuring that we provide high quality, affordable legal services to all our New Zealand clients.

Our legal team have all trained at leading firms, but have left the traditional corporate law world to join us on our mission to create a new and better way of delivering legal services. They have specialist expertise in technology law, intellectual property law, contract drafting and review, corporate law and commercial law.