Your AI use policy is solving the wrong problem
Image Credit: Ideogram
The article argues that many businesses are holding back their own progress by treating artificial intelligence as something suspicious or akin to cheating. Concerns borrowed from education or the arts—where authenticity and individual skill matter are being misapplied to corporate environments, where performance is judged by results. This has led to stigma, particularly around disclosure requirements, which studies show trigger bias against employees who openly use AI, even when their output is as strong as non-AI work.
Instead of focusing on whether AI was used, the author argues that companies should adopt a simpler principle: treat AI like any other powerful tool and make humans fully responsible for the final product. Errors, plagiarism, or weak writing generated by AI still fall on the person who submits the work. A consulting firm’s embarrassment after delivering an unverified AI-generated report is cited as proof of what happens when human oversight is neglected.
The piece concludes that businesses must shift from fear-based policies to an ownership mindset training employees to verify and refine AI-assisted work, celebrating successful outcomes, and setting quality standards that ignore the method of creation. Companies that embrace this approach will advance faster than those still fixated on disclosure, because the real measure of competitiveness is no longer whether AI was used, but whether the work is excellent.
