AI data readiness
AI will find the files you forgot you shared.
An AI connector to your email, files, and calendar gets no new access. It works with the permissions of whoever is signed in, and it makes everything that person can already open searchable in seconds. So the risk is the oversharing you already have, like a folder someone shared with the whole organization years ago.
Shared drive · Finance
Salaries and budget, 2019.xlsx
Anyone in the organization can view.
Last opened four years ago.
One question to an AI assistant, signed in as any staff member, brings it back.
01 · Self-check
Five questions before you connect anything
Answer for your school or organization as it is today. Nothing you click here is saved or sent.
01Do you know where your most sensitive records live, such as health, HR, finance, and student or client files?
02Is that sensitive data stored somewhere an AI assistant, signed in as an ordinary staff member, could not reach?
03Have you turned off “anyone with the link” and organization-wide sharing on sensitive files?
04Have you decided, role by role, which AI tools may connect to email, files, and calendar, and does sending or editing need a person’s approval?
05Does someone own each data area, and do you review AI connections and sharing settings on a set schedule?
0 of 5 answered
02 · Four steps
Classify, Contain, Connect, Confirm
The order matters. Connecting AI to your systems is step three, and it comes after the data is sorted and locked down.
Classify
Write down where your data lives, from shared drives and email to the student or client information system and the offices that keep health, HR, and finance records. Sort it into a few tiers, from public up to highly restricted. Give each area an owner who can approve exceptions.
Contain
Fix access where the data sits. Move the most sensitive records into restricted drives or systems that no AI connector can reach. Remove organization-wide and public-link sharing from confidential files, and set sharing defaults at the drive level so new files start closed.
Connect
Now turn connectors on, role by role. In your email and file platform’s admin settings, decide which AI apps may reach mail, files, and calendar. In each AI tool’s admin console, give read access before write access, and require a person’s approval before an assistant sends or edits anything.
Confirm
Tie access to a short training and turn on audit logs. Review connector settings and file sharing every term or quarter, and keep a written plan for what you do when something goes wrong. Whatever you find goes back into Classify.
03 · Why now
Most organizations are writing AI rules before fixing the data underneath
- Of the organizations IBM studied that had an AI tool breached in 2025, 97 percent had no controls on what that AI could access. IBM
- Schools are writing the rules and skipping the setup. In CoSN's 2026 survey of public school districts, 79 percent had AI guidelines and 7 percent were getting their data systems ready for AI. CoSN
04 · Work together
I help schools and organizations do this groundwork, from the first data inventory to a staged connector rollout. If you answered No or Not sure to any of the five questions, that is a good place for us to start.
Get in touch