Found to have breached firm’s AI policy — what should I realistically expect?
Throwaway account for obvious reasons.
Hoping for some genuine perspective on this rather than people piling in, because I know I’ve messed up.
I’m a relatively junior PQE associate at a major UK-headquartered firm, one you’d all have heard of. Recently I’d been using the paid versions of the well-known AI tools to help with work — nothing heavy, just things like getting a quick summary of a long document, or running drafting past it for a sense check. Stuff I’d done myself, basically, that I wanted a second look at.
Turns out the firm has a policy that this is not allowed, and I should have known about it. I genuinely didn’t. The reason I used these tools is that at my last firm (which I left recently)the websites were just blocked completely. When I started at this firm and noticed they weren’t blocked, I thought ok, this firm must take a different view, and I went ahead and used them. I never thought to actually go and check the policy. This sounds stupid typing it out now but at the time it didn’t even occur to me, I just assumed the position was different here.
The firm picked it up and contacted me about it. I’ve been completely honest in my response, not tried to hide anything or play it down, including giving detailed info regarding the nature of the docs and the clients they pertain to.
The accounts I used were paid, I had the training opt-out toggled off the whole time, and I always delete chats immediately after I’m done with them, so there’s nothing actually sitting on either platform. I know that doesn’t change the fact that the upload itself was the issue.
What I’d like to know is whether anyone has experience of, or knowledge of, an analogous scenario — what the outcome was and how the firm dealt with it. For what it’s worth, I’ve got an otherwise clean record at the firm and my work has been very well received internally and externally.
Any thoughts appreciated.