AI Governance & Acceptable-Use Policy in Texas
Your employees are already using AI. A governance policy decides which tools are allowed, what data may go into them, who approves exceptions, and what happens when someone gets it wrong. We write it in language your staff will read, then configure the controls that make it real.
The Problem
The typical situation is not resistance to AI, it is silence about it. A salesperson drafts proposals in a free chatbot, an office manager pastes an invoice batch in to summarize it, an engineer uploads a customer drawing. None of them are trying to cause harm, and none of them know whether the vendor keeps that content. Then a customer sends a security questionnaire asking about your AI controls, or an insurer asks at renewal, and there is no document to point at. Meanwhile a policy copied off the internet sits unread in a shared folder, because it was written for a company that does not resemble yours.
The Solution
We start with what your people actually do, not with a template. We inventory the AI tools already in use, including the ones nobody mentioned, decide with you which are approved for which categories of data, and write a short policy in plain language using real examples from your business. Then we implement the enforcement: tenant settings that permit or block specific services, data loss rules for the information you cannot afford to leak, logging so you can answer questions later, and training so the rules make sense to the people bound by them. The policy work is remote across Texas. Houston clients can have training and leadership sessions in person, and we schedule travel from Houston elsewhere when an all-hands session is worth doing in the room. Pricing is a fixed monthly retainer scoped on a discovery call.
Core Responsibilities
The Policy Itself
The Controls Behind It
Making It Stick
Engagement Process
Find What Is Already In Use
Before writing anything we look at what your staff has adopted, using tenant reporting, network visibility, and honest conversations. Naming the tools already in the building is the only way to write rules people recognize as fair.
Decide the Rules With Leadership
We work through the decisions only you can make: which categories of data are off limits, which tools are approved, who signs off on exceptions, and what follows a violation. These are business decisions and we do not make them for you.
Write and Publish
You get a short acceptable-use policy, a longer governance document for auditors and customers, and a one page summary staff will actually read. Everything is written to sit alongside your existing handbook and security policies.
Enforce and Review
We configure the controls, run the training, capture acknowledgements, and set a review cadence. AI tools change quickly, so the policy is revisited on a schedule rather than left to age quietly in a folder.
Where We Deliver This
Common Questions
Can we just ban AI tools instead?
You can, and a few regulated shops do. In practice a ban with no enforcement moves the activity to personal phones and home laptops where you have no visibility at all. If you genuinely want a prohibition we will implement the blocking controls that make it enforceable, and be honest about what still slips through.
Does this satisfy a customer security questionnaire?
It answers the AI section of most questionnaires we see, because those questions ask whether you have a documented policy, an approved tool list, and evidence of training. We write the artifacts so you can attach them directly. We cannot promise how any particular customer will score you.
Our staff is spread across job sites and branches. How does training work?
Short recorded modules plus a live session by department, delivered remotely for companies outside Houston. Field crews get a version aimed at what they actually touch, usually photos, documents, and customer information, rather than a general lecture about technology.
Who owns the policy after you write it?
You do. It is your document in your format, and we hand over the editable source. Most clients keep us on retainer to maintain it because the tool landscape shifts constantly, but you are never dependent on us to change a line.
We are in a regulated industry. Does the same policy work?
The structure is the same, the content is not. HIPAA, CMMC, PCI, and customer contracts each impose specific restrictions on where information may go, and those get written into the approved tool list rather than left to individual judgment. We map the policy to whichever framework you already answer to.
Ready to get started?
BOOK A CONSULTATIONAcross Texas
The reason a Texas policy cannot be generic is that the restrictions come from your customers and regulators, and those differ sharply across the state. A supplier to the defense programs around Fort Worth, San Antonio, or Killeen may be handling controlled unclassified information, which rules out most consumer AI services no matter how careful the employee is. Hospitals, clinics, and home health agencies from the Texas Medical Center to El Paso and the Rio Grande Valley need a business associate agreement before any tool touches patient information, and free chatbots do not offer one. Energy operators and their service companies around Midland, Odessa, and the Houston Ship Channel are protecting well data, bid pricing, and drawings competitors would value, under master service agreements carrying confidentiality terms nobody has reread in years. Austin and Dallas technology companies now face customer questionnaires that ask directly about AI usage, where the answer is a purchasing condition. Customs brokers along the border in Laredo and Pharr handle importer data under obligations that predate all of this. Agricultural producers and processors in the Panhandle and the Valley are the least regulated and the most likely to have contract terms with a large buyer that nobody has checked. We write the policy against your actual obligations, working remotely across Texas with on-site sessions in Houston and travel arranged from Houston when it earns its place.
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