Green: public and general

Green is anything that is already public, or that contains nothing about any identifiable person or any confidential business matter. Published documents. General questions about how to do something. Your own drafts of things that will be public anyway. Formulas, code snippets that contain no secrets, meeting agendas with no personal detail.

Green can go into any tool, on any account. The only caution is quality: an AI tool is not a source of truth, and green content is still your responsibility when you use what comes back.

Most of what most people want AI for is green. The mistake is treating everything as green because most things are.

In practice. A communications officer uses a consumer chatbot all day for green work: rewording a press release, suggesting headlines, checking a paragraph for tone. None of it contains a name that is not already in the public release. She has never needed the business licence for any of it.

At your desk. Look at the last ten things you asked an AI tool. Mark each one green if it contained no personal data and no confidential business information. Count them.

Write it down.

• Out of my last ten, green ones:
• An example of green work I do often:
• One I marked green but should not have: