In short
The problem and the solution
The problem
People use public AI tools with company data because nothing better is provided. Answers have no source, some are wrong, and nobody can show how AI is used.
The solution
We set up a private Company Brain your company owns, with sourced answers, access by role, a usage policy and an audit trail.
What changes
Your team gets the benefits of AI on your own knowledge, your data stays yours, and a buyer sees governance instead of a gap.
A story you may recognize
A ban, and then a better answer
In April 2023, engineers at Samsung's semiconductor division used ChatGPT to help with their work. In three cases, they uploaded sensitive material, including source code and internal meeting notes. Samsung responded by banning generative AI tools on company devices.
How the story ends, and what it means for you
A ban is understandable. It is also a temporary fix, because people who find a tool useful will reach for it on their phones, where the company has no control at all.
Nexio Projects, an ESG consultancy of about 45 people, took the opposite route and started with guardrails. It set up an AI task force with someone from every department, mapped its workflows, wrote an AI ethical use policy, required a named person to own every AI output, and kept existing document permissions in place.
Then it rolled out assistants connected to its own systems. According to the vendor's published story, 88% of the team used them daily after four months, and around 95% of HR questions were resolved without a colleague stepping in. Those figures were published by the supplier and not independently audited.
The difference is simple. One company tried to keep AI out. The other gave its people a safe way in.
Source: TechRadar and Forbes on Samsung, May 2023; Dust customer story, Nexio Projects; ExValu case study analysis
What the research shows
You are not alone with this
AI helps, inside its limits
Consultants using GPT-4 completed 12.2% more tasks, 25.1% faster, with 40% higher quality on suitable tasks. On a task outside the AI's capability, they were 19 percentage points less likely to be correct.
Source: Dell'Acqua and colleagues, Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier, Harvard Business School Working Paper 24-013
Companies answer for their AI
A tribunal held an airline responsible for wrong information given by its website chatbot, and rejected the argument that the chatbot was responsible for itself.
Source: Moffatt v. Air Canada, 2024 BCCRT 149
Company case studies
Companies that faced the same problem
These businesses tackled the same problem in their own way. Each case study sets out what they did and where a Company Brain could take it next.
What two companies did about it, one case study each
Nexio Projects · ESG and sustainability consulting
Nexio set guardrails before rolling out AI assistants. The vendor reports 88% daily use after four months, and around 95% of HR questions resolved without a colleague stepping in.
Read the case study
Experience Your Wealth · Financial planning
Jake Northrup built a private AI assistant from the firm's procedures and more than seven years of client conversations.
Read the case study
Your step-by-step plan
What you can do, starting this week
Each step assumes your ExValu Company Brain is in place: your documents and the know-how of your people, connected so your team can ask questions and get sourced answers. The time estimates are typical and depend on your business.
- 1
Find out what your team already uses20 minutes
Ask openly, without blame: which AI tools do you use for work, and for what? The answers show you where the demand is and where the risk sits.
- 2
Write a one-page AI usage policy1 hour
Which tools are allowed, what may never be pasted into public tools, and who is responsible for checking output. Your Company Brain holds the policy, so anyone can ask "Can I use AI to draft this client letter?"
- 3
Give people a better option1 to 2 weeks
Your private Company Brain answers from your own documents and captured know-how, with the source shown. It is faster than the public tool, so people use it.
- 4
Set access by role1 hour
HR, finance and owner-only content stay separate. A new hire sees what their role needs, and nothing more.
- 5
Keep a person in charge of every outputOngoing
Answers show their source. Anything without one is flagged. Client-facing output always has a named person who checked it.
- 6
Keep a short AI literacy guide30 minutes, refreshed yearly
Explain what the Company Brain is good at, where it can be wrong and when to ask a person. Many businesses now have a duty to support AI literacy among staff, so check what applies to yours with your legal advisor.
What it does for the value of your business
What a buyer sees
Without a Company Brain
AI is used in unknown ways, company data may sit in public tools, and nobody can show a buyer how AI is governed. A buyer sees a data risk and possible vendor lock-in.
With a Company Brain
AI runs on your own knowledge in a private system your company owns, with a usage policy, role-based access and an audit trail. A buyer sees governance that can be checked, and knowledge stored in files the business owns.
Your Company Brain is built so the knowledge stays portable. If the business changes hands, the buyer receives it as part of the company.
How you will know it is working: four numbers to track
Measure it
How you will know it is working
- Share of AI use that runs through the private Company Brain
- Answers with a source, as a share of all answers
- Policy acknowledged by every team member
- Access reviews completed on schedule
Privacy and trust: how your knowledge stays private
Privacy and trust
The Company Brain uses GDPR-compliant tools, does not train public models on your data, and gives each person access only to what their role needs. Every answer can be traced to its source.
Want to talk it through?
Answer a few short questions to see if the Company Brain fits, then pick a time for a 30-minute call with our team.
Where every fact on this page comes from
Sources
- TechRadar, Samsung bans ChatGPT use after employee leak, May 2023; Forbes Australia on the same events
- Dust customer story, Nexio Projects; ExValu case study analysis
- Dell'Acqua and colleagues, Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier, Harvard Business School Working Paper 24-013, 2023
- Moffatt v. Air Canada, 2024 BCCRT 149
Facts and figures are as reported in the sources above, checked by our team on October 11, 2026. Company-reported and vendor figures are described as such. To request a correction, write to [email protected].
ExValu - Human vision, AI output