What do you do when you receive a long email, and do not feel like reading everything in it? For many people, they use an easy solution: Copy it into AI and ask for a summary.

Maybe you dislike what you read there, and you need help writing a professional-sounding response. You might paste it into AI and ask, “How should I respond to this?”

It takes seconds, and the responses can genuinely help you.

Unfortunately, the person who sent you the email doesn’t get a say.

When someone sends you information, they intend to share it with you. Copying that message into an AI tool can potentially share their information with another service entirely.

It’s Not Just Your Information At Risk

We tend to think about AI privacy in terms of our own data. We know not to hand over our Social Security number, for example, nor to upload your banking information.

As a general rule, never paste confidential work documents into an unapproved tool.

A lot of the information we handle every day belongs to other people. An email might contain someone’s phone number, address, account information, health information, or details about a private situation. A work message could contain customer information or internal company details.

When you copy the entire message into AI, all of that information comes along with it.

AI Usually Does Not Need the Whole Conversation

Imagine that a customer sends you a three-paragraph complaint about an order. You want AI to help you write a professional response.

Instead of pasting the customer’s entire message into the AI prompt, you could say:

“A customer received the wrong product and is frustrated because they need the replacement by Friday. Help me write a polite response apologizing and explaining that we’re sending a replacement.”

The AI doesn’t need the customer’s name, email address, order number, shipping address, or complete message history in order to do its job right.

This small change gets you the same positive result, while sharing considerably less information with an unauthorized third party.

Forwarding and Copying Are Not the Same Thing

If someone sends you an email and you forward it to a coworker who needs the information, that could be a normal part of doing your job.

Pasting it into an outside AI service works differently.

Your organization may have agreements and security controls governing where company information can go. An AI service you found online may fall outside those protections. This becomes especially important when you work with healthcare information, financial records, legal communications, customer data, or other confidential material that often have data privacy regulations restricting what you can and can’t share.

Even if your intentions are completely harmless, you can still put information somewhere it was never supposed to go.

Screenshots Count Too

Copying and pasting sensitive information is not the only concern. People increasingly upload screenshots to AI because it is easier than explaining what is on the screen.

A screenshot of an email might include the sender’s name and email address. Pictures of chat conversations could include profile photos, phone numbers, or messages from several other people.

Even the edges of the image can reveal information that you never intended to share. Before uploading a screenshot, make sure to look at the entire image. Then crop unnecessary areas and remove identifying information whenever possible.

Ask for Help Without Sharing Everything

You do not need to stop using AI to help with your communication, but you should change how much information you give it.

Instead of pasting an entire email chain, summarize the situation. Replace people’s names with descriptions such as “customer,” “coworker,” or “manager.” Remove account numbers and other identifying details.

If you genuinely need AI to review the original material, make sure you are using a tool that your workplace has approved for that type of information.

The goal is not to give AI as much context as possible, but to give it only as much context as it needs to complete your request.

Think About the Other Person

AI makes it incredibly easy to summarize, rewrite, analyze, and respond to information. Unfortunately, that convenience can make us forget where the information came from in the first place.

Before you paste someone’s email, text message, document, or screenshot into AI, take a second to look at what you are actually sharing. Ask yourself whether the AI needs the original information or whether you could describe the situation instead.

Protecting your privacy matters. Protecting someone else’s matters, too.