Brand-safe AI guidelines do not need to be a long policy document; a short, practical reference that the whole team actually reads and follows is far more useful.
Define approved use cases clearly
List specific tasks where AI use is encouraged — drafting, idea generation, summarising, rephrasing — and specific tasks that always require human-first work, such as anything involving legal claims, health advice, or final client-facing numbers.
Set a mandatory fact-check rule
Make it a non-negotiable rule that any statistic, price, date, or named claim generated or suggested by AI is verified against a real source before publishing, with no exceptions for time pressure.
Protect brand voice
Include a few example sentences showing your actual brand tone versus a generic AI-style sentence, so team members have a concrete reference for what editing for voice actually means in practice.
Address data privacy explicitly
State clearly what information should never be pasted into AI tools — client contracts, unpublished pricing, personal customer data — and which approved tools, if any, are cleared for sensitive internal use.
Review the guidelines periodically
AI tools and their capabilities change quickly, so revisit the guideline every few months rather than treating it as a one-time document, updating it based on real mistakes or edge cases the team has encountered.
Key takeaways
- Clearly separate AI-encouraged tasks from human-first tasks
- Make fact-checking AI claims a non-negotiable rule
- Give concrete examples of brand voice versus generic AI tone
- Specify what information must never be entered into AI tools
- Revisit and update guidelines every few months