How to Actually Use AI in Your Business
without putting your client (or company) data at risk!
I use AI almost every day in my business. Not for the things people assume, like preparing tax returns or running bookkeeping.
How i use ai in my firm.
I would never put client data into an AI tool, and you shouldn’t either! There are real privacy reasons for that, and Canadian businesses have specific obligations under PIPEDA when it comes to how personal information is handled.
But here is what most business owners are missing: there is an entire category of work in your business that has nothing to do with client data, and AI can save you hours on it every single week.
I want to walk through where I actually use it, what I use it for, and what to keep out of it. The tool I use is Claude (made by Anthropic), but most of this applies to other AI tools too.
The rule I follow
Before I get into the examples, here is my own boundary. I do not put anything into AI that I would not be okay sharing publicly. No client names. No financial details that belong to someone else. No business numbers that are sensitive to my firm. No personal information about my team or my clients.
If you can pass that test, AI can help you. If you cannot, do the work yourself or use a tool that is built for that specific purpose (a secure tax platform, a CRM, your bookkeeping software).
Now, what I actually use it for
1. Writing emails i don't ACTUALLY want to writeDifficult client emails. Follow ups. Updates I have been putting off for two weeks because I just can’t get the tone right…
I write a rough draft (or even just bullet points of what I want to say), paste it in, and ask the AI to clean it up while keeping it sounding like me. Five minutes instead of forty.
What I do NOT include: the client's name, their specific financial situation, or anything that would identify who I am writing to. I describe the situation in generic terms ("a client who is behind on document submission" instead of "Sarah from XYZ Inc. who still hasn't sent her T2 documents from last year")
2. Social media content Caption writing. Carousel scripts. Hooks for reels. Brainstorming topics. Reworking a long-form idea into a short-form post.
This is one of the highest-leverage uses for any business owner who is trying to show up consistently online but does not have hours every week to write from scratch. I tell it the topic, who my audience is, the tone I want, and ask for a few drafts. I pick what works and tweak.
3. Newsletters and blog drafts Same as above. I will sometimes feed in a few rough thoughts, the angle I want to take, and what I want the reader to walk away with, and ask for a draft. Then I rewrite it in my own voice.
The point is not to publish what AI writes. The point is that staring at a blank page is the hardest part, and AI eliminates the blank page.
4.Building Excel formulas and projections This one surprises people, but it is one of my favourite uses.
If you want to build a cash flow projection, a pricing model, a hiring plan, a revenue forecast, or any other kind of spreadsheet that involves formulas, AI is brilliant at it. You describe what you are trying to build, what columns you want, what the formulas should do, and it will write the formulas for you (or explain what to type in each cell).
Again, do not paste in real client numbers. Use placeholder figures or describe the structure. Once you have the spreadsheet built, you can plug in your actual numbers privately.
This is also great for fixing a formula that is not working. Paste in the formula (no surrounding data) and ask what is wrong.
5. Summarizing long documents you did not write. Industry reports. Government announcements. CRA bulletins. Anything that is publicly available and you want the highlights of.
A 40 page report becomes a one page summary in seconds.
6. Thinking out loud. This one might be the most useful and the hardest to explain. Sometimes I am working through a decision and I just need to talk it out. AI is good at this. I describe the decision in general terms, ask what I might be missing, and use it to pressure test my own thinking.
It is not a replacement for an actual advisor. But it is a useful sparring partner when you are trying to clarify your own thoughts.
What to keep out of ai
Client tax returns and financial statements. Bookkeeping data. Personal information about employees or clients (names, addresses, SINs, banking details, salary information). Confidential business numbers that you would not want a competitor seeing. Internal documents that contain any of the above.
If you are not sure whether something belongs in AI, ask yourself: would I be comfortable if this exact text ended up on someone else's screen? If the answer is no, keep it out.
AI is not going to do your taxes for you
It’s not going to replace your accountant. It is not a magic shortcut for the parts of your business that require real expertise or real privacy.
But it can give you back hours every week on the writing, the brainstorming, the drafting, and the spreadsheet building. For a business owner who is already short on time, that is real money.
If you have been curious about how to actually use AI in your business and have been worried about the privacy side, this is the way in. Start with the categories above. Keep client and sensitive data out.
See what you save in the first week - you might be surprised!
