All Episodes

August 2, 2026 • 14 mins

Before you paste that customer list, that blood test result or that contract into your favourite AI tool, it's worth pausing for a second. Whatever you hand over doesn't just disappear after you get your answer. It sits somewhere, and depending on the tool and the settings, it might be doing more than just answering your question. 

Most people have never actually checked what happens to their data once it goes in or thought about the difference between what's fine to share and what's better redacted first. 

In this How I AI episode, Neo and I work through what's actually safe to give AI and what's better left out. We cover how to check your settings so free tools aren't training on your data, how to de-identify sensitive things like health results and contracts, the rules that change once you're at work, and the one question to ask yourself before you upload anything. 

What you'll learn: 

  • How to know if AI is quietly training on the data you give it, and how to switch that off 
  • The one question to ask before you upload anything to AI 
  • Why work and home should be treated completely differently when it comes to AI 
  • What to redact from contracts, spreadsheets and client files before sharing them 
  • Where the line sits between using AI as a sounding board and relying on it too much 
  • Practical AI tools for productivity and focus 
  • Real-world AI workflows used by high performers 
  • How to use AI at work without burning out 
  • Smart shortcuts for managing time and mental load 

Connect with Neo Aplin on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/neoaplin/) and via inventium.ai (https://inventium.ai), where he leads Inventium's AI training and upskilling work with organisations and teams. 

How I AI with Dr Amantha Imber and Neo Aplin explores how high performers are using AI at work to boost productivity, make better decisions and reduce overwhelm.

Want more prac

Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You've got a spreadsheet full of customer names and phone numbers,
or a blood test result you don't quite understand, and
you're about to paste the whole lot into AI. Dan
you pause, should you? I mean that's a fair hesitation,
because once something's uploaded, it's sitting on a server somewhere

(00:21):
and getting a back isn't simple. In this episode, Neo
and I work through what's actually safe to give AI
and what's better left out. You'll learn how to check
your settings so the free tools aren't training on your data,
how to de identify sensitive things like health results and contracts,
the rules that change once you're at work, and the

(00:45):
one question to ask yourself before you upload anything. By
the end of this episode, you'll know how to get
the same great results without handing over more than you
need to. Welcome to how IAI with me Doctor Amoutha

(01:06):
Imba and Neo Applan, head of Inventium AI. Each episode
we share one practical way to use AI better at
work and in life. No fluff, no tech jargon, just
things you can use straight away. Neo. One of the
most common questions I think we get in our workshops

(01:27):
and keynotes that we do at inventium AI is what
shouldn't tie upload to AI. So that's what we're tackling today,
and let's start with whether the answer depends on what
platform you're using.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
And whether you're paying for it, and whether you've locked
it down as well. So if you've got a free
version of some of these tools I'm talking about Gemini
and Claude and Copilot and things like that, do go
into your settings to see whether you can click off
the thing that says use my data to train the
model and things like that. Often on the free versions

(02:05):
you can turn that off. Sometimes, say with Gemini, you cannot,
so find the tool that you're using and just automatically
do that. They do not need to use any of
the information you're putting in there to train their models.
But with that, once you've got that, or maybe you're
paying for the tool, then yeah, you can absolutely upload
information up there and it will be private between you

(02:27):
and the company. So private between you and say claud
or Anthropic as an example, And that's great. You can
do that, and certainly you can upload files and it's
going to be private between the two of you. But
here's the thing, do you really want your say, health records.
If you're going to upload health records, do you want
your health records to be sitting in a server of

(02:47):
Anthropic in America. That's up to you. Maybe the answers yes,
maybe the answers no. Do you want to have a
conversation with AI and say, here's all the psychological problems
I'm having at the moment, and for that to be
then available in the cloud and maybe someone might be
able to access your computer and even see your previous chats.
That's up to you as well. What I personally like

(03:08):
to do is I like to de identify that. So
I've had blood tests before, and I've wondered, is you
know a seven point three million miles per liter are
good or bad for that particular thing? Just give it that,
don't give your whole blood tests. Just say this is
a number should I Is that interesting? Or is that
above or below what it should be?

Speaker 1 (03:27):
I want to get into how it's different between the platforms.
Let's assume that we've got a paid subscription, what then
should we be thinking about in the context of work
and what we should upload work.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
It's a bit different to home because if it's your stuff,
then of course you've got a choice to upload it
to these services or not. Work is really different because
you're then beholden by whatever your company is saying you
need to do. So, if you've got a company and
they're saying they're going to go copilot, for example, that
means you can't use your home copilot where you're logged

(04:04):
in with hot mail to send your company information too.
You can only use the work copilot when you're logged
in with your work account. So that's really important, And
a lot of companies are saying used to allowed to
use this one tool, not many tools, because they don't
want all of their client customer data just to be
spread everywhere, or their company secrets and things like that.
So the basic rule there is, if your company has

(04:25):
given you one, two or three tools, only use those one,
two or three tools and be logged in with the
accounts that your company has let you be logged in with.

Speaker 1 (04:34):
Now, a lot of clients that we do work with
have an AI use policy or an AI strategy, but
there are still quite a lot of organizations that do not.
So just say I'm working for an organization, maybe they
do or they don't have an AI use policy, but
I have no idea what it is. What should I
be doing in terms of what should I feel comfortable

(04:55):
giving to AI at work and we'll talk about personal
stuff in a moment, and what should I not be uploading?

Speaker 2 (05:02):
No policy means you can do what you want, right,
there's no policy, no, obviously not. The first thing I'd
look at is your privacy policy, believe it or not,
because how you deal with your client, customer data and
even partners and suppliers and whatnot, that'll be covered in
your privacy policy. And with AI you do not get

(05:22):
to get out of jail free card with privacy, So
you've got to secure your customer, client extra data, just
as you would with any other piece of information because
you're using this as any other tool. So look at
that first. If there is no policy, if there's a policy,
what we found in some companies, and we've have very
large companies where people read the policy and they one

(05:43):
department thinks you can do it whatever you want with it,
and another department reads the policies. Oh no, I can't
use much AI. So I encourage companies to actually give
really good examples and guidance on what you can and
can't do to adhere to that policy because it is
hard to understand, like don't be an idiot is effectively
what most of the policies say. But there's my version

(06:03):
of don't be the idiot's very different to your version
of don't be an idiot. So a couple of things
i'd say here is if you're in a regulated industry,
so if you're in healthcare, finance, all of those kind
of things, then there are absolutely some very big, hard
and fast rules there and you will definitely need to
follow those. So some of them are data to sovereignty.

(06:25):
In other words, all of your data needs to sit
in an Australian server and things like that. Under certain
information bits of data and whatnot, there will be other
things there which is kind of like what your company
thinks and expects. So, for example, tax file numbers in Australia,
they're like the social security number, like this is very
very important information and it's not something you want to

(06:48):
just spread around. And so some companies are saying, look,
there's some information that doesn't really belong on AI, and
I'd say that tax file numbers is definitely one of those.
I'd say that people's bank account details doesn't really need
to go to AI. I don't understand why I need
to have a conversation with AI about those kind of
bits of information health records, client, those client things like that.

(07:09):
Those things probably don't belong there. Even if you could
put them on the policy, I'd probably say not, it's
probably a good idea just to leave them alone. But
really find it what the policy is. If there is
a policy, then absolutely try to follow it.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
What about things like you know, if you've got a
big customer database like names and email addresses and phone numbers,
should I upload that to AI? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (07:32):
I had asked a question, why are you doing that?
So if you're doing like analytics, then do you really
need the name or the phone number for that? Maybe
you just need that there is a record with these people,
and maybe their postcode is the only thing you need
to get to be able to get some analytics out
of it. So what information can you redact, effectively remove

(07:53):
or strike out? I use it say with contracts. So
if there's a contract there, then AID does not need
to know who the contract is between me and the
other company. But I'm quite happy to get excerpts of
the contract and get it to review that. No problems whatsoever.
So it's not a big task for you to go
through and just remove some things. It or be columns

(08:14):
in a spreadsheet or rows on a word document or something.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
So on the work front, NEO, what do you think
about with what you're uploading to inventis AI tools, Like
what would surprise people about what you're say redacting versus
what you're really comfortable uploading.

Speaker 2 (08:33):
I generally don't like to put any non work personally
identifiable information there. So I'm comfortable, for example, it to
look through my emails because I'm in copilot already touches
my emails and it's already there, and so picking up
that I sent an email to Amantha Ember on the
fourteenth of April. Fine, happy days, no problems there. These

(08:56):
work details are great. But if I had client information,
and we don't, we're really lucky. We don't have people's
home addresses. We don't need your home address to give
you AI training. So but if I had home addresses,
that wouldn't go there. Certainly with staff stuff, I know
we don't do this, but we don't have HR related
you know, tax and pay type things going into AI

(09:19):
that just doesn't belong there. At all. So those kind
of really personal they call it PI for Personal Identifying
Information and SPI, which is sensitive personal information, whether it
be like health records, union membership, those kind of things.
As a general rule, ask yourself like, do I really
need AI to have this to be able to then
get the information out of it? And I'd say good,

(09:41):
ninety percent of the time the answer is no. And
for that last ten percent of time, it's like, can
I get a similar kind of output by redacting it?
Other things that I don't generally put in there are
things that have the company's details. So if I'm working
on things for some clients and I'm giving a lot
of background to what the client's back problems are and

(10:02):
the issues and all those kind of things, I just
say I've got a client that has this. I don't
say Acmeincorporated or road Runner Industries or whatever. Yeah, I'm
showing my age here. Yeah, But I don't need to
give it all those names to be able to get
that information out. On a personal level, if you're going
to use AI for coaching, counseling and things like that,

(10:23):
or health records, it doesn't need to know that it's
actually your health record or your coaching or counseling things
for some of these sensitive things. So redacting is a
really good way to go.

Speaker 1 (10:32):
So let's actually shift into personal So what things would
you on your personal AI that you use? What do
you deliberately not share or redact there?

Speaker 2 (10:44):
I've given it health things before, but I don't give
it the entire piece. So I will say, here's a
blood test result, not necessarily saying mine. I'm saying is
it above or below the iron levels that I need
to have for those kind of things. For bank statements,
I don't give it bank statements. But what I have

(11:06):
done in the past is I've done an analysis on
things where I haven't got the dollar figures or the
actual bank statements, and instead I've said, here's a bunch
of transactions. I want you to categorize. Those transactions might
be how much my spending on food versus how much
am I spending on entertainment. So those kind of things
are fine because if I'm spending twenty dollars on that
or forty bucks on that, I'm fine with that. But

(11:27):
it doesn't need to know my bank account details.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
And then how about with things relating to mental health
and using the AI as a you know, a therapist
like tool, because I know that you've built an agent
that is like that for you. What do you choose
to share and what do you not share? There?

Speaker 2 (11:48):
That's a wider discussion, and I love using it for this,
and I want people to think of AI as a
potential buddy or confident or someone you can dump a
bunch of stuff on and it doesn't complain. But it's
also not great if you're in a moment of crisis.
So first off, if you're in a moment of crisis,
then definitely humans are the absolutely best for those kind

(12:09):
of things. But it's great for Hey, I had this situation,
do you reckon I managed it well or I'm second
guessing myself on a you know, help me see it
from different angles. AI is amazing for those kind of things.
And I would say that that's not highly highly personal,
Like I'm quite happy to tell other people that I
had a moment of questioning and whatnot, But it's not
that I'm I'm having a horrendous time and I'm you know,

(12:32):
I need serious, serious help. Those kind of things I
would definitely get humans to help me with. But you
will find that some people open up more and more
to AI, and it's a slippery slope because you feel
it's really it knows a lot about you, and it's
quite helpful on those kind of things. It's not a
problem from a privacy kind of perspective, but it's more
about how can you use AI so that it gives

(12:54):
you the right steer because a I does like to
agree with you and go, oh, you're so right. I
don't want someone say you're so right if I'm absolutely
crazy and about what I've said, like it's a stupid idea, Neil,
I want someone to tell me that was a stupid idea.
Of course you should have given someone the seat or
whatever it is. So having it as a challenger sometimes
is really useful. So yeah, for counseling things, your miling

(13:18):
is is going to be varying, but really watch out
for those yourself.

Speaker 1 (13:21):
If someone is just going to do one thing differently
based on just being more sensible with what they upload
to AI, what would you recommend out of everything we've
chatted about?

Speaker 2 (13:32):
Question? So before you upload something, before you give something
to AI, ask what am I trying to get out
of it? Out of the AI? What kind of benefits
am I going to get out of it? And then
question does it need to have all that information in
order to give me some or most of those benefits?
So often you can remove the heading, the title, the customer,

(13:54):
the client, that row of everyone's phone numbers, and you
can still get some amazing insights out of it, and
it doesn't take that much extra work. So just question
it doesn't need all of this stuff, and if it doesn't,
just remove it and you'll probably find you're getting a
great result.

Speaker 1 (14:09):
I love that. Neo, thank you so much for helping
us all use AI a little bit more safely and securely.
How AI was hosted by me Amantha Imber and Neo Applan.
A big thank you to Martin Imber who does our
sound editing, and Jim Rubio for production support, and thank
you to John Kilby who composed the theme music.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

The Bobby Bones Show

The Bobby Bones Show

Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2026 iHeartMedia, Inc.

  • Help
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • AdChoicesAd Choices