How artificial intelligence can be used safely

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers numerous benefits in everyday office life, from simplifying repetitive tasks to analyzing data for quality improvement. However, with its increasing use in companies, questions arise regarding the secure operation of AI, as well as transparency and data sovereignty in handling company data .

Where do the uncertainties in AI use come from?

Using AI in everyday office life means that a large amount of company-specific and customer-specific data is processed by various AI solutions. The framework for processing by large cloud providers is often difficult to obtain and, in its scope and wording, also difficult to understand. For laypeople and even for us experts, it is usually complex and challenging to make a reliable statement about the data sovereignty of an AI solution .

What is data sovereignty?

Data sovereignty in the context of artificial intelligence (AI) means that organizations – especially public institutions – retain full control over who accesses, processes or reuses their data, when and for what purpose .

In the context of AI, this is crucial, as training, analysis, and decision-making processes rely on large datasets. Data sovereignty, transparency, and traceability can only be guaranteed if data protection, ethical standards, and European values ​​such as self-determination and trust are upheld.
In line with the European digital strategy (see EU Data Governance Act, 2022; AI Act, 2024), data sovereignty is therefore the basis for a trustworthy, transparent and sovereign use of AI systems – especially in the public sector, where sensitive data has a high need for protection.

How can I ensure the sovereignty of my data?

We say generally

True security only exists if the AI ​​solution processes all data completely on a local machine using open source models.

If that's not possible within the company, then our top 3 steps can help:

• Data minimization : only include information absolutely necessary for the result in prompts and, if necessary, replace it with generic terms such as "a customer" instead of the actual name. Keep in mind that this can change the results of the AI ​​processing!
• Do not disclose any documents or only specific ones to AI cloud solutions ; when analyzing documents, always check how the processing takes place, how the document is stored or further used – if in doubt, it is better to copy and paste individual paragraphs.
• Organizationally, AI usage should be regulated ; if no secure in-house AI solution is used, then it should be clearly defined which uses are permitted in everyday office life and which data may be used.

We are happy to support you in implementing these steps and demonstrate best practices that can be easily integrated into your daily work. Just get in touch!

Your company needs a secure local AI solution.

CXO Partners specializes in truly secure artificial intelligence for everyday office use: We process all data entirely on a local machine using open-source models, ensuring genuine data sovereignty. We would be happy to discuss this further and how we can support your company in a personal consultation.

Further reading recommendations

• Digital processes have an impact
• Process optimization creates space for what matters most.
• Our CLUE: integrated translation for protocols
• Offline AI: Use 100% clean AI processing locally on-premise.