Artificial intelligence is no longer a future concern; it’s already in your office. Your employees are using it. Your competitors are using it. And in many cases, it’s happening without any policy, any guardrails, or any awareness of what’s leaving your network.
Big Sur Technologies recently hosted a lunch and learn alongside Brian Linebaugh of CIO Advise to talk honestly with Tampa Bay business owners about where AI stands today and what smart, practical steps look like for small and mid-sized businesses.
The AI Horse Is Out of the Barn
Whether your team has an official AI policy or not, people are using tools like ChatGPT right now. Lawyers are summarizing contracts with it. Sales teams are drafting proposals. Staff is uploading documents to get quick answers. The challenge isn’t whether AI is coming; it’s whether your business is protected when your employees use it.
Public AI tools like ChatGPT’s free version are not private. Anything entered into those platforms, like contracts, financial data, client information, and source code, can be retained by the platform and potentially discovered by others. That’s not a hypothetical risk. It’s already happening to businesses that didn’t know better.
Big Sur’s position on AI is straightforward: we’re not here to sell you software. We’re here to make sure your environment is ready and protected before AI tools ever touch your data.
That starts with data governance. Before your team uses any AI tool, you need to know where your data lives, who has access to it, and whether your infrastructure is properly locked down. We’ve seen businesses roll out Microsoft Copilot, only for employees to suddenly discover financial documents and sensitive files they were never meant to see. That’s not an AI problem, that’s a permissions and governance problem that AI just surfaced.
For most of our clients who are already in a Microsoft environment, we recommend Microsoft Copilot (paid version) as the private, secure path forward. Unlike public tools, Copilot keeps everything inside your Microsoft tenant. Your data isn’t training anyone else’s model, and it isn’t going anywhere you haven’t authorized.
AI Accountability Is Real
One of the most important points from our discussion: you are responsible for any AI output that goes out under your company’s name. AI models hallucinate; they make things up. We’ve seen a lawyer submit a legal brief with fabricated case citations generated by AI. We’ve seen Samsung leak proprietary source code through a public tool. These aren’t edge cases anymore.
The era of AI accountability is here. That means policies, records, and the ability to defend your AI use in an audit.
For businesses ready to take a real first step, Big Sur offers a small business AI and technology assessment designed for organizations with at least 10 users. In 5 to 10 hours of hands-on work, we’ll review your systems, network, security posture, and data environment, and give you a clear picture of where you stand and what needs to change before AI becomes part of your workflow.
We’ve been stewards of technology in Tampa Bay for over 27 years. AI is the next chapter of that work, and we’re ready to help you navigate it with clarity and confidence.