Recently, we had the privilege of talking about AI’s impact on commercial real estate at TCN Worldwide’s 2024 Fall Conference.
It was great to talk with leaders in the commercial real estate space about AI’s impact on brokerage, and to hear about how they plan to utilize this technology for the future.
We heard some insightful questions from the audience that we feel apply to our wider readers and have included them below (questions and answers have been edited for clarity).
Audience Question: Protecting Confidential Data
One audience member asked: “As far as using Copilot, my concern is if it will look through my emails and things to that effect. We make offers to new employees. Based on this, could anyone using Copilot see this confidential info, because that’s in old emails, that’s in several different places. What’s the best way to minimize that?”
Answer
The beauty of Microsoft Copilot is that if you’re the one running the query, it’s scanning through all the emails that you have access to. But if somebody else is doing the query, it’s only scanning through what they have access to. So unless they already have access, for example, if someone put the offer letter in the wrong place, or sent the email to someone they shouldn’t have, the only people who can access that information are the people who have the permission to do so. On the other hand, AI tools can shine a light on permissions that already exist, which is why it’s essential to conduct a thorough review of permissions before implementing AI.
Blog: Why Data Hygiene and Cleanup are Essential
Audience Question: Agile Security Policies
Another question relevant to our readers was: How do you create an AI security policy and a process for updating it that doesn’t hinder the use of AI? With AI tools changing so fast, is updating a policy every 90 days quick enough?
Answer
When dealing with security, there are two ends of a spectrum: making things ultra-secure (there is a saying that the most secure way to implement IT is to just shut everything off), and finding a balance that allows you to operate securely while allowing your to do their jobs effectively.
The exact balance is dependent on the organization’s risk tolerance.
It requires having conversations with key people within a company on how you use AI, and how to get the access that you need while protecting the organization from data leaks, lawsuits or other issues.
In terms of updating, the policy itself doesn’t need to be entirely rewritten every ninety days. It can simply be added to and amended, rather than completely rewritten. Additionally, we recommend 90 days as the minimum for you to update a policy. If you’d like to update your policy more than every ninety days, your team members can be alerted to these amendments and enabled to review and sign off on them. This keeps them up to date without the need to reread an entire document.
Blog: Why You Need an AI Security Policy
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