This recent article from Gallagher’s Lenin Lopez addresses the need for companies to update their social media policies in order to ensure that they appropriately cover the issues associated with artificial intelligence. This excerpt discusses how companies should think about AI when crafting social media policies:

AI-enabled tools are increasingly part of how content is created, edited, summarized and shared. Employees may view these tools as convenient when preparing posts, responding to industry developments, drafting captions, summarizing company announcements, translating content or making something technical more accessible. Even when an employee is well-intentioned, the output could be inaccurate, incomplete, off-brand or based on confidential or proprietary information that shouldn’t have been entered into the tool in the first place.

AI isn’t the primary focus of most legacy social media policies and companies don’t necessarily need a separate policy to address these risks. However, they should consider targeted updates within the existing universe of their policies, like those covering social media, confidentiality, communications and information security.

For example, companies may want to consider clarifying that:

– Employees remain responsible for content they post, regardless of whether it’s generated or assisted by AI.
– Confidential or proprietary information shouldn’t be entered into unauthorized tools.
– AI-assisted communications are subject to the same approval, accuracy and recordkeeping expectations as any other content.

These additions can help reinforce existing obligations rather than creating entirely new ones. That is, the underlying regulatory themes — like accuracy, supervision and accountability — remain unchanged, even as the tools evolve.

Other topics covered by the article include social media policy basics, the people who should be involved in drafting the policy, the need for review by outside counsel, what to think about when creating a policy, and how often the policy should be refreshed.

– John Jenkins