Your AI Conversations Aren’t Privileged - A Court Confirmed It
Employees have started treating AI like a safe place to prepare sensitive information.
So they say things like:
“Make this attorney-client privileged.”
“Clean this up before legal sees it.”
“Rewrite this investigation summary.”
“Turn these notes into a report for counsel.”
They believe they are protecting information.
In many cases, they have already disclosed it.
The moment sensitive facts are pasted into an external AI system, the information has left the organization’s controlled environment. The request for protection comes after the exposure.
Intent doesn’t matter.
Sequence does.
The Behavior Causing the Problem
People don’t think they are sharing information externally.
They think they are:
But the actual workflow is:
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AI becomes the first recipient of the facts.
And protection depends almost entirely on who receives the information first, not who reviews it later.
What Employees Are Actually Typing Into AI
This is happening across departments:
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None of these users believe they are disclosing protected information.
Operationally, they are.
Why People Think This Is Safe
Employees mentally categorize AI as:
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But they interact with it like a collaborator.
They are not asking software to format text.
They are telling a system facts.
And once facts are shared outside a controlled environment, protection doesn’t start later.
The Irreversible Part
Organizations often assume they can repair it afterward:
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None of those undo the first disclosure.
Because protection does not fail later.
It never begins.
If sensitive information is first disclosed to an external AI system:
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You cannot make information confidential after you have already shared it with an uncontrolled third party.
Why This Keeps Happening
Employees aren’t trying to bypass process.
They are trying to be efficient.
They are cleaning up documentation before escalating it.
From their perspective, this feels responsible.
From a workflow perspective, they inserted an external recipient before protection exists.
Legal review happens second.
Disclosure already happened first.
The Real Risk
This isn’t about hallucinations or accuracy.
It’s about order of operations.
Organizations built confidentiality around controlled first disclosure.
AI quietly changes who that first disclosure goes to.
By the time someone asks AI to protect information, they may already have done the opposite.
The problem isn’t losing protection.
It’s creating disclosure before protection can ever exist.
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